Historical sources · 1948–1957
Wiener’s selected reading, technical books, conference records, and popular treatments, alongside Barrett and Shepard’s explanation of their bibliography.
Historical material shared by Sean Manion, @TheUnjournaling, and transcribed on Systems Community of Inquiry. The original compilers and publication authors retain their separate credits.
All 48 transcribed entries are retained: eight selected readings, 20 short-bibliography entries, 15 popular treatments, and five popular pieces by Wiener. They resolve to 45 distinct atlas works; one issue reference remains unidentified.
Four entries have selected primary passages reviewed, and Ashby’s 1946 title has an archive metadata check. The remaining entries have a bibliographic account. This is not a claim that every paper has been read.
The linked post supplies three pages of introduction. It describes six categories and names two illustrative books, but contains none of the bibliography’s hundreds of entries. Those missing pages are needed for a full paper-by-paper pass.
The byline is F. Dermot Barrett and Herbert A. Shepard. The source URL’s spelling ‘Shephard’ is retained only as part of its address.
The dated 1952 list is distinct from the approximate 1951 popular list and the short bibliography described as 1956. That last list includes Cherry’s 1957 book; its exact date needs the archival typescript. No silent correction has been made.
These are the compilers’ categories, framed for social scientists. They remain a historical classification, with overlaps acknowledged in the introduction.
Open the bibliography’s atlas entry.
Named in the introduction as strongly consonant with cybernetics. This is the compilers’ assessment.
Named as a less clear-cut inclusion for scattered insights. This does not establish a cybernetic theory of organisation.
Search the original wording, author, title, or note. An atlas link identifies a work; the review label says how far the evidence pass has gone.
Ashby, W. R. ‘The Behavioral Properties of Systems in Equilibrium.’ American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 59 (1946), 682–6.
Archive metadata checkedOpen the primary text or archive record
Ashby’s archive supplies the fuller title: Dynamics of the Cerebral Cortex: The Behavioral Properties of Systems in Equilibrium. Original citation retained.
Brillouin, L. ‘Life, Thermodynamics, and Cybernetics.’ American Scientist, Vol. 37 (Oct. 1949), 554–568.
Bibliographic record onlyConference on Cybernetics. Transactions of the Sixth Conference on Cybernetics. March 24–25, 1949. New York, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.
Bibliographic record onlyCybernetics. Transactions of the Seventh Conference on Cybernetics. March 23–24, 1950. Heinz von Foerster, Ed. New York, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.
Bibliographic record onlyHeinz von Foerster is named as editor, not sole author.
Fano, R. M. The Transmission of Information. M.I.T. Research Laboratory of Electronics. Technical Report No. 65. Part II. Technical Report No. 149.
Selected primary passages reviewedOpen the primary text or archive record · TR 65: abstract, introduction, and sections I–III; TR 149 not inspected
One source entry names two reports, TR 65 and Part II/TR 149. The inspected full text is TR 65, dated 17 March 1949; TR 149 remains a separate research lead.
Weaver, Warren. ‘Science and Complexity,’ American Scientist, Vol. 36, No. 4, 536–544.
Bibliographic record onlyWiener, Norbert. Cybernetics. Cambridge, Mass. Technology Press. 1948.
Bibliographic record onlyWiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings. Boston, 1950; London, Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Bibliographic record onlyAshby, W. Ross, Design for a Brain, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York (Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London), 1952.
Selected primary passages reviewedOpen the primary text or archive record · 1954 corrected reprint: preface, 3/14, 8/4–8/7
Bell, D. A., Information Theory and its Engineering Applications, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, London, 1953.
Bibliographic record onlyBerkeley, E. C., Giant Brains, or Machines That Think, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1949.
Bibliographic record onlyBrillouin, L., Science and Information Theory, Academic Press, New York, 1956.
Bibliographic record onlyde Broglie, L., ‘La Cybernétique,’ report of Conference in Paris, 1951, published by Rev. opt. (165 rue de Sèvres, Paris).
Bibliographic record onlyCherry, C., On Human Communication, The Technology Press of M.I.T. & John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, (Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London), 1957.
Bibliographic record onlyThe list is described as 1956, but this item gives 1957. Preserve both dates; the typescript’s exact date needs archival verification.
Conferences on Cybernetics, Transactions, 7th (1950) to 10th (1953), Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, New York.
Bibliographic record onlyA range of four conference volumes; overlaps the separately listed seventh conference, without being identical to it.
Gabor, D., Lectures on Communication Theory, published by M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass., 1951.
Bibliographic record onlyGoldman, S., Information Theory, Constable & Co., Ltd., London, 1953.
Bibliographic record onlyHebb, D. O., The Organization of Behavior, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, (Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London), 1949.
Bibliographic record onlyde Latil, P., Thinking by Machine, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1956, translated from La Pensée Artificielle, Librairie Gallimard, Paris, 1953.
Bibliographic record onlyLocke, W. N., and A. D. Booth, Machine Translation of Languages, The Technology Press, M.I.T., and John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1955.
Bibliographic record onlyMacmillan, R. H., An Introduction to the Theory of Control, Cambridge University Press, London, 1951.
Bibliographic record onlyMorse, P. M., and G. E. Kimball, Methods of Operations Research, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1951.
Bibliographic record onlyProceedings Second London Symposium on Applications of Communication Theory, London, 1952, Butterworth Scientific Publication, London, 1953.
Bibliographic record onlyShannon, C. E., and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1949; published earlier in Bell System Tech. J., 27, 1948, pp. 379 and 623.
Selected primary passages reviewedOpen the primary text or archive record · 1949 preface; Shannon pp. 3–5; Weaver pp. 95–99
Walter, G., The Living Brain, Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., London, 1953.
Bibliographic record onlyWiener, N., Cybernetics, The Technology Press, M.I.T. and John Wiley & Sons, (Hermann et Cie., Paris), New York, 1948.
Bibliographic record onlyWiener, N., The Human Use of Human Beings, The Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1950 and Doubleday & Co., Inc., New York, 1954.
Bibliographic record only1950 first publication and 1954 revision are retained under one work, without treating their texts as identical.
Woodward, P. M., Probability and Information Theory with Application to Radar, Pergamon Press, Ltd., London, 1953.
Bibliographic record only‘Brain is a Machine,’ Newsweek, Nov. 15, 1948.
Bibliographic record only‘In Man’s Image,’ Time, Dec. 27, 1948.
Bibliographic record only‘Machine in Man’s Image,’ Sat. Review, Jan. 8, 1949.
Bibliographic record only‘Brain is a Machine,’ Science Digest, Feb. 1949.
Bibliographic record only‘Machines that Think,’ Business Week, Feb. 19, 1949.
Bibliographic record onlyC. Eisenhart, ‘Cybernetics, a New Discipline,’ Science, Apr. 22, 1949.
Bibliographic record onlyJ. B. Thurston, Review of Cybernetics, The Sat. Rev., Apr. 23, 1949.
Bibliographic record onlyJ. D. Trimmer, ‘Instrumentation and Cybernetics,’ Scientific Monthly, Nov. 1949.
Bibliographic record only‘Thinking Machine,’ Time, Jan. 23, 1950.
Bibliographic record onlyA. Standen, ‘Mind and/or Machine,’ Commonweal, May 27, 1950.
Bibliographic record onlyMark Starr, Review of The Human Use of Human Beings, The Sat. Review, Aug. 19, 1950.
Bibliographic record onlyIrwin Edman, ‘Mind in Matter,’ New Yorker, Oct. 14, 1950.
Bibliographic record only‘Feed back to Idiocy,’ Time, Jan. 8, 1951.
Bibliographic record onlyCurrent Biography, March 1951.
Bibliographic record onlyNo article title or author supplied. Retained as an unresolved issue reference, without an invented publication identity.
‘If Robots Run the Works,’ J. K. Lagemann, Nation’s Business, March 1951.
Bibliographic record only‘World of Robot Brains,’ Science Digest, Sept. 1949.
Bibliographic record only‘Electric Brains with Feelings,’ Science Digest, Sept. 1949.
Bibliographic record only‘Too Big for Private Enterprise,’ Nation, May 20, 1950.
Bibliographic record only‘Too Damn Close,’ Atlantic Monthly, July 1950.
Selected primary passages reviewedOpen the primary text or archive record · Sections 1 and 2
‘How U.S. Cities Can Prepare for Atomic War,’ with Karl Deutsch, Giorgio de Santillana, etc., Life, Dec. 18, 1950.
Bibliographic record onlyThe source says “etc.” after named collaborators; this is not asserted to be a complete author list.
A listed title establishes that a compiler selected a work. It can help locate a text, recognise an audience, or trace public reception. Claims about influence, agreement, authorship, or the meaning of a theory need evidence appropriate to that claim.
Follow How a reading list makes a field, or The message arrived. What happened?