What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the age. Today's information explosion may seem like an acutely modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generationa nor even the first speciesa to wrestle with the problem of overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies Sumerian archives, Greek libraries Dark Age monasteries. Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a tsunami of data. With some historical perspective, however, we can begin understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning understand. Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. Finally, he pulls these threads together reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the age may lie deep in our cultural past.
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