The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by Benjamin Bratton
Published 2015 · 528 pages · 236,654 words · about 22 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty to read?
The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty scores 76 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 72 out of 100
- Dense theoretical vocabulary drawn from multiple disciplines; neologisms throughout.
- Sentence structure: 65 out of 100
- Abstraction: 82 out of 100
- Operates at the highest levels of political and architectural abstraction.
- Information density: 80 out of 100
- Extremely dense; multiple theoretical frameworks interwoven per chapter.
- Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
- Argument built through layered conceptual construction rather than linear thesis.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- The Stack as an architectural and political symbol; layers as conceptual architecture.
- Ironic distance: 14 out of 100
- Critical but earnest; no performative irony.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- Diagnosis is elaborate; political prescriptions are deliberately provisional.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Six-layer structure generates recursive interplay across all chapters.
How The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty is regarded
The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty holds a literary regard score of 65 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.