Destruction of Documents
Erasure and Accountability in the Administrative State
$143.97
- Paperback
256 pages
- Release Date
15 December 2026
Summary
Administrative documents mediate bureaucracies and trust in them, making organizational life possible. In Destruction of Documents, Andrew Whelan argues that the politics of paperwork are most explicit when the paper trail is deleted, burned, shredded, or otherwise done away with.
Exploring how irreconcilable administrative ideals have been understood across historical and cultural contexts, the author shows that the destruction of administrative documents both legitimates an…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262054652 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262054655 |
| Author: | Andrew Whelan |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 256 |
| Release Date: | 15 December 2026 |
| Weight: | 369g |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
| Series: | History and Foundations of Information Science |
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Critics Review
ENDORSEMENTS
“What if it turns out that power grows from the feed slot of a shredder? In this thrilling book, Andrew Whelan takes us through both overt and covert histories of paperwork meeting its end. This document, at least, should endure.”
—Ben Kafka, Columbia University; author of The Demon of Writing
“Whelan brings out the unexpected in a most ordinary problem: What to do with our documents? Surprising and theoretically rich, Whelan contributes incisively to scholarship on archives, institutions, and power.”
—Jessa Lingel, University of Pennsylvania; author of The Gentrification of the Internet
“Bureaucracy is a machine for storing files. In this extraordinary book, Whelan spins this idea to consider forgetting, unpublishing, disposal, and hence to think about life outside the filing cabinet.”
—Martin Parker, University of Bristol; author of The Organization of Things
Andrew Whelan
Andrew Whelan is a sociologist at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. His research has been published in journals such as Critical Sociology, Social Media and Society, and The Sociological Review.
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