First edition of the transactions of the eighth Macy Conference, held at the Beekman Hotel in Manhattan from March 15-16, 1951. Edited by Heinz von Foerster with assistance from Margaret Mead and Hans Lukas Teuber. Published in 1952 by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. 8vo (6.25” x 9.25”), hardcover with original stiff, unclipped dust jacket priced at $4.00, 240 pages. A distinguished participant's copy of one of the foundational texts of cybernetics and postwar systems theory, documenting the landmark conference attended by John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and others whose work shaped modern computing, artificial intelligence, information theory, and cognitive science. This copy belonged to conference participant Henry W. Brosin, psychiatrist and future president of the American Psychiatric Association, and is extensively marked as his "Home copy": his ownership signature appears on the front free endpaper, accompanied by contemporary manuscript notes referencing electronic calculators in wartime simulations, Wright Field, von Neumann and Morgenstern, and a New York Times article of August 24, 1951. Brosin's name is additionally handwritten on the front panel of the dust jacket, while his Pittsburgh address stamp ("Henry W. Brosin, M.D., 3821 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh 13, Penna.") appears on the front and rear pastedowns and, with almost obsessive insistence, on all three exposed edges of the text block. A remarkably well-preserved example despite evident professional use: binding tight, cloth bright, gilt crisp; slight lean to spine. Slight bumping and rubbing to dj, with light chipping to spine ends and corners. DJ detached at front joint, though seamlessly preserved in plastic cover.
An exceptional association copy linking one of the twentieth century's most influential interdisciplinary publications to an identified participant whose annotations capture the migration of cybernetic thought into Cold War psychiatry and strategic analysis.
First edition of the transactions of the eighth Macy Conference, held at the Beekman Hotel in Manhattan from March 15-16, 1951. Edited by Heinz von Foerster with assistance from Margaret Mead and Hans Lukas Teuber. Published in 1952 by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. 8vo (6.25” x 9.25”), hardcover with original stiff, unclipped dust jacket priced at $4.00, 240 pages. A distinguished participant's copy of one of the foundational texts of cybernetics and postwar systems theory, documenting the landmark conference attended by John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and others whose work shaped modern computing, artificial intelligence, information theory, and cognitive science. This copy belonged to conference participant Henry W. Brosin, psychiatrist and future president of the American Psychiatric Association, and is extensively marked as his "Home copy": his ownership signature appears on the front free endpaper, accompanied by contemporary manuscript notes referencing electronic calculators in wartime simulations, Wright Field, von Neumann and Morgenstern, and a New York Times article of August 24, 1951. Brosin's name is additionally handwritten on the front panel of the dust jacket, while his Pittsburgh address stamp ("Henry W. Brosin, M.D., 3821 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh 13, Penna.") appears on the front and rear pastedowns and, with almost obsessive insistence, on all three exposed edges of the text block. A remarkably well-preserved example despite evident professional use: binding tight, cloth bright, gilt crisp; slight lean to spine. Slight bumping and rubbing to dj, with light chipping to spine ends and corners. DJ detached at front joint, though seamlessly preserved in plastic cover.
An exceptional association copy linking one of the twentieth century's most influential interdisciplinary publications to an identified participant whose annotations capture the migration of cybernetic thought into Cold War psychiatry and strategic analysis.
Image 1 of 14
Image 2 of 14
Image 3 of 14
Image 4 of 14
Image 5 of 14
Image 6 of 14
Image 7 of 14
Image 8 of 14
Image 9 of 14
Image 10 of 14
Image 11 of 14
Image 12 of 14
Image 13 of 14
Image 14 of 14
