Books like If Then by Jill Lepore

Name: If Then
Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Author: Jill Lepore

Begun in 1959, Simulmatics Corporation built the first large‑scale data‑mining system, dubbed the "People Machine," to analyze patterns of voter behavior, consumer preferences, and media influence. Its clientele included John Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, the New York Times, advertising agency Young & Rubicam, and the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War. Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian and New York Times staff writer, reveals how the company’s early work in psychological warfare and predictive algorithms set the stage for modern data‑driven political and commercial strategies, long before the rise of Facebook, Google, Amazon, or Cambridge Analytica.

First publish date: 2020

Genre: History/Modern History

Authors: Jill Lepore

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.0 (2 community ratings)

All books by Jill Lepore

How are these books recommended?

The books recommended for If Then by Jill Lepore are shaped by reader interaction. Votes on how closely books relate, user ratings, and community comments all help refine these recommendations and highlight books readers genuinely find similar in theme, ideas, and overall reading experience.

Have you read any of these books?
Your votes, ratings, and comments help improve recommendations and make it easier for other readers to discover books they’ll enjoy.

Books similar to If Then (6 similar books)

📘 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 (41 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

📘 To save everything, click here

by Evgeny Morozov

Evgeny Morozov explores how digital technology reshapes society, questioning the delegation of political, cultural, and moral responsibilities to algorithms and the Internet.

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 (3 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like To save everything, click here

📘 Book of Ages

by Jill Lepore

A richly detailed biography of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, Jane Mecom, that offers a fresh perspective on the social conditions of early America and the founding of the United States.

★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 (2 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like Book of Ages

📘 The Whites of Their Eyes

by Jill Lepore

★★★★★★★★★★ 0.0 (0 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like The Whites of Their Eyes

📘 The social transformation of American medicine

by Paul Starr

An esoteric, intelligent, and scholarly book on how the industry of medicine in the US. If you really want to understand how medicine has become a business instead of a noble profession is understandable after this must read book. You can pretend to have an understanding or you can actually know what you are talking about. This book is well researched and referenced but does not read as an academic treatise.

★★★★★★★★★★ 0.0 (0 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like The social transformation of American medicine

📘 Empathy Diaries

by Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle explores how technology reshapes empathy and human connection, drawing on her work with psychologists, women in tech, and social insights.

★★★★★★★★★★ 0.0 (0 ratings)

Similar?
✓ Yes 0 ✗ No 0

Books like Empathy Diaries

Some Other Similar Books

The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America by Michael G. Fitzgerald
The Constitutional Origins of Judicial Review by Sanford Levinson
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t by Nate Silver
The Origin of Others by Svetlana Alexievich
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff

Have a similar book in mind? Let others know!

Please login to submit books!