Data Empire

How information shaped human history

By: Roopika Risam

Brought to you by Penguin.

From clay tablets to the algorithmic state, this groundbreaking 11,000 year history argues that information has always been the seed of power. Perfect for readers of Nexus and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Long before writing existed, at the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia, rulers pressed marks into clay to keep track of land, people and grain. To rule, they had to keep count. It is no accident, then, that the first written name in human history was neither a god nor a king, but an accountant.

As ships and navigation expanded our horizons, a new age of European empires took control of more than 80 per cent of the world’s surface, using censuses, maps and ledgers to decide who belonged, who owed, and who could be sacrificed. Today, we live in the third great era, when trading our information for access can feel harmless or inevitable – yet from targeted advertising to border policing and mass surveillance, data shapes the course of our lives.

Drawing on stories from ancient cave markings and knotted strings to colonial record-keeping and the algorithmic state, Data Empire reveals how data has always been the seed of power: a technology of control that has shaped civilizations and upheld empires. Provocative, humane and sweeping in scope, it asks us to recognise the power data has always held – and to imagine what resistance looks like in an age defined by it, so that we might remake the modern world for the benefit of all.

© Roopika Risam 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critic reviews

From the earliest inscriptions, through the record-keeping of the Han dynasty or the Domesday book, to the modern world of the internet and AI, Risam demonstrates how data has both controlled and liberated us and so moulded the human story. Breathtaking in its scope and enormously fulfilling in its depth, this book is profoundly fascinating. (Professor Lewis Dartnell, author of Being Human)

This brilliant, readable book offers a striking new historical perspective on accountants and number-crunchers, demonstrating the extent to which data has shaped and controlled people’s lives across centuries and continents. (Professor Corinne Fowler, author of Our Island Stories)

A timely and ambitious history of humanity’s oldest technology: keeping track. For millennia, humans have counted and recorded the world—first with pebbles, notched bones, and cave art, later with ledgers, censuses, and now algorithms. Data Empire traces how these practices became instruments of power, shaping trade, governance, and the fate of entire populations. A compelling, highly readable account of data’s often unseen influence on our lives. (Brooke N. Newman, author of The Crown’s Silence)