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I tend to love the topics Gleick write on, but not the delivery. I can never put my finger on the structure of the discussion. It's certainly not as simple as past-to-present. In The Information, Gleick starts with Claude Shannon, the founder of Information Theory, goes on a detour to a 19th century Christian Missionary learning drumming in Africa, and then a totally non-linear tear through history. I'd ennumerate the readily memorable topics, but I'd only be able to do it in chronological order
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Gleick really has a talent for popular nonfiction books. It's maybe a rounded up 5 star but certainly one of the better ones I've read in recent memory.
Some of the choices clearly just worked with me but might not work so well with others. For instance, the book is choke-full of tangents, sometimes not as related to the "main story" as a busier reader might be. As an academic who does some information science professionally, I appreciated the tangents and historical notes very much, as it waters ...more
Some of the choices clearly just worked with me but might not work so well with others. For instance, the book is choke-full of tangents, sometimes not as related to the "main story" as a busier reader might be. As an academic who does some information science professionally, I appreciated the tangents and historical notes very much, as it waters ...more
Definitely a great overview of Information. A bit of the writing was fantastic, most of it was good. However, information is such an abstract yet important topic that it's really great that someone wrote this book.
Inspirational. ...more
Inspirational. ...more
A fantastic, thoroughly detailed look at the development of different communication methods throughout history — drums, the telegraph, morse code, telephone, binary code, the internet — and their effects on the way people live. It's also a great reminder of how short a period of time, in the context of human history, we have been using high-speed communication methods. Perhaps that's why dialogue on platforms like Twitter is often so terrible — humans have hardly had any time to adapt to communi
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