The ed-tech industry is trying to sell us personalized learning, learning analytics, and similar buzzwords as these novel ideas that are going to revolutionize our classrooms. As is often the case with techno-solutionism, these promises largely ignore the history and ideologies of the proposed solutions. This book focuses on uncovering the surprisingly rich – and mostly US-focused – history of mechanical teaching machines. Various behavioral psychologists (most notably B. F. Skinner) tried to bring these machines to schools before the advent of computers, with arguments eerily similar to those we keep hearing today. The book is certainly not a casual read, but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in gaining a broader critical perspective on ed-tech.