How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

The prevailing myth of invention is that it is the product of a solitary genius. Steven Johnson takes on this myth in How We Got to Now.

Johnson’s book is a history of invention with a focus on six particular innovations. He demonstrates that simultaneous invention is common, suggesting that societal knowledge, norms and expectations play a part in invention—at least in providing an environment in which certain types of inventions can be created and flourish.

Thomas Edison and the light bulb is the classic myth challenged by simultaneous invention. Humphrey Davy demonstrated an incandescent electric light in 1802 and Frederick de Moleyns received the first patent for a light bulb in 1841. By the time Edison got involve, people had been working on light bulbs for 30 years, and the potential for electric light had been now for 70 years. Edison and his team of collaborators deserve a lot of credit for creating a commercially successful electric lighting system, inventing solutions to many problems along the way, but is a story of systematic hard work.

Edison’s electric lighting system depended on a lot of prior technology, which relates to another of Johnson’s points: clusters of inventions. An invention can illuminate a previously unnoticed problem (or create a new one). For instance, the availability of affordable books that follow Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press revealed that many people were farsighted. This sparked a demand for reading glasses. The tinkering with lenses led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes. Galileo took up the telescope and made discoveries in astronomy that reshaped how people saw the world. Robert Hooke used the microscope to explore a seemingly alien world of the very tiny thing all around us, though the revolution he inspired took longer to bloom.

Johnson explores other aspects of invention and society. I think it is fair to say that his view of how invention works is a lot messier than the myth. Inventors are at the right place at the right time, with open minds that are prepared (likely by accident) to make a connection and a willingness to do the work of thinking, testing and making something new. They probe the boundaries of their fields, tinker and throw themselves into hobbies that bring them, often with companions, to crossroads that challenge their notions of where they can go and how they can get there.

On the whole, Johnson presents a vision of hope in our history. We are not dependent on genius or serendipity; human creativity is both a social and an individual process in which the collision of ideas leads to new ideas. We live in an era where the collision of ideas may be more possible than ever.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Big Necessity by Rose George

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

Circles by James Burke

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

The Pinball Effect by James Burke

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Steven Johnson also wrote

The Ghost Map

The Invention of Air

Johnson, Steven. How We Got To Now: Six Innovations that Make the Modern World. New York: Riverhead, 2014.

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Alexander Graham Bell is obviously known for his invention of the telephone. He started his career teaching the deaf to speak using a set of tools developed by his father. This career lead the Scotch-Canadian teacher (Bell became an American citizen in 1882) to meet an American girl, Mabel Hubbard, who he would marry. Helen Elmira Waite tells the story of their life together in Make a Joyful Noise.

Mabel Hubbard lost her hearing at the age of five after being ill with scarlet fever. Her parents were determined that she would continue to speak and understand speech. They were encouraged by news from Germany that schools there were teaching the deaf to speak, but there was little support for it in the United States. Even so, they arranged for a teacher who had the courage to try and Mabel learned to speak and read lips.

Gardiner Hubbard, Mabel’s father, was a businessman and politician in Massachusetts. He became an advocate for the education of the deaf, especially oral education (speech and lip reading). As a child, Mabel testified to a committee of the Massachusetts legislature to demonstrate what a deaf child could learn.

Bell set us a school for the deaf in Boston. Here he was introduced to Mabel, whose family hoped his techniques could help her achieve a more natural speech. He began experimenting with the idea of pushing more signals down telegraph wires, which lead to his invention of the telephone. Gardiner Hubbard became one of Bells backers in these efforts. Even though Bell grew to spend more time developing his telephone, and later testing designs for aviation, he always remained active in education for the deaf.

The Bell family authorized Waite’s biography. The advantage of this is that she had access to family records and the recollections of the Bells’ children and grandchildren. The possible downside is that Waite may have been inclined to present the Bells in the best light. Waite may have been inclined to do this anyway. In his preface, Bell’s son-in-law, Gilbert Grosvenor, mentioned that he and his wife Elsie, Bell’s oldest daughter, had read Waits biography of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan (the Bells knew these ladies and Bell himself encouraged Keller’s parents that she could be educated and connect to the wider world).

Waite does admit to Bell’s stubbornness and sometimes-excessive sense of propriety. If the Hubbards, particularly Mabel, had not pushed, persuaded, coerced, and even tricked Bell into promoting, protecting, and commercializing his invention, he may have tinkered in his shop making a better telephone that no one would use.

Waite’s style is almost conversational; she’s telling a story. I think Make a Joyful Noise is accessible to many younger readers. It is also interesting in that the book is as much about Bell’s private life, particularly his romance and marriage with Mabel, as it is about his invention. In addition, she demonstrates that Mabel was a remarkable and capable person on her own.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

Waite, Helen Elmira. Make a Joyful Sound: The Romance of Mabel Hubbard and Alexander Graham Bell. Philadelphia: MacRae Smith Company, 1961.

The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson

Johnson, Steven. The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth of America. New York: Riverhead, 2008.


Joseph Priestly was a man of contradictions. He was an inventive scientist, one of the fathers of chemistry, who somehow clung to an ancient idea his own research undermined. He had the courage to be a heretic, but held on to religious beliefs when many of his peers embraced atheism. He was a proponent of political liberty and the American cause whose views brought him trouble even in America.
Johnson’s Invention of Air is partly a biography of Priestly. It is also an attempt to see how revolutions in ideas occur. Priestly was connected to the scientific, religious and political revolutions of the Enlightenment. As one man’s involvement in all of them suggests, they were not completely separate, nor did the intellectual leaders of the time see them as discreet.

As a biography, the book works well. The sections shift emphasis from science to religion to politics. Though Priestly was a professional clergyman and ostensibly amateur scientist most of his life, Johnson’s framework works well chronologically because of his subject’s shifting emphasis.

Johnson doesn’t hit on a new theory of idea revolutions. He suggests the outlines of one, or maybe the method of discovering it. He finds in Priestly the beginnings of a systems approach to knowledge, especially science, that crosses disciplines and switches from small-scale to large-scale and back again. The model is modern ecological and systems science, which Johnson finds rooted in the coffeehouse meetings of Enlightenment amateurs who the many areas of human knowledge and endeavor as connected and amenable to improvement through reason.

I’m not a great fan of Enlightenment thinking, but I admire that they were serious and that they saw that truth in one realm (science, religion or politics) had ramifications in others. People seem willing to throw up walls and throw up their hands just to avoid the difficulties of struggling with all these things. Science wants to be unfettered from political and religious restrictions, but only thrives in stable and free (political) environments where people see the material world as worthy of study (an essentially religious view). The political freedom we long for needs support from good and available knowledge (science) and institutions that support individual self-government (religion). Religion in particular is walled off from other areas, but scientists and politicians have too readily shrugged off ethics that were based on human sentiment, when they were accountable to no one because no one was stronger.

Stephen Johnson also wrote The Ghost Map.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison
The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra
Steam by Andrea Sutcliffe

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

For those of us who can remember a time not so long ago when we didn’t have telephones (computers really) in our pockets and the Internet was something few were connected to, even of those few who had computers in their homes, the current state of communication technology can seem revolutionary. This is tame compared to the changes wrought by technology that seems commonplace to us now. In The Age of Edison, Ernest Freeburg describes the amazing changes brought about in the 50 years following the introduction of electric lighting.

Though Thomas Edison is a huge figure in electric lighting, especially in the United States, Freeburg is careful to avoid the myth of the solitary inventor bringing an idea out of thin air. Many people were working on electric lighting.  Edison’s incandescent bulb had advantages over other lights, especially because he conceived of a complete lighting system with power sources, distribution and controls in addition to lamps. There were predecessors in the field, so Edison was working in a social context of seeking to provide superior lighting.

These competitors were not only other electric light inventors, but also older technologies, especially gas. Because electric power did not reach rural areas until the 1930s, much older artificial lights, like kerosene lamps, persisted even as electric lights became common in middle-class urban homes.

The first customers of electric lights were not homeowners, but businesses and cities who were already customers of lighting systems. These lights transformed cities, which various economic forces were causing to grow. From public lighting, electric systems were adapted to retail businesses, arts, entertainment, and science.

The early electric lighting market was competitive, unregulated, and wild. Electrocutions and fires were too common and widely publicized. Light companies were forced to improve safety by a political movement that supported municipal government control and ownership, and insurance company interests. This led to electric codes, the founding of the Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL) in 1893, college programs in electrical engineering, and the unionization of electrical workers.

Commercial interests dominated the early development of electric lighting. This was not the only reason electric lights had critics, but it was a significant reason. Intellectuals criticized the unartistic randomness of commercial messages seeking outshine each other. They were not especially successful in curbing electric lights, but the industry began to mature in this context and develop more attractive, effective and efficient lighting systems that were adapted to uses in homes and businesses.

Freeburg wraps up with Henry Ford’s 1929 jubilee of the invention of the incandescent electric lamp. In 50 years, the invention transformed almost every part of American life, especially urban life that was quickly becoming more common as people left farms for opportunities in cities. One of the telling things is that the event was broadcast on radio. In 1879, people huddled around candles and lanterns if they had to have light when the sun went down, but well within the span of a lifetime electric lights became dominant and electric appliances were common enough that radios were in homes and many were able to participate in a distant celebration of a transformative technology. It is hard to imagine how amazing these changes were to the people who experienced them.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Freeburg, Ernest. The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America. New York: Penguin, 2013.

STEM Books

I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related books (and counting).  STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As you may have seen in the news, there is a push to improve STEM education, interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers in these fields.  The idea is that these will be the skills needed by workers of the future.  If you’re a STEM educator or a student considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of these books.

I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle school students.  The list is also a reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public health, policy, and history.  Even with these biases, I think it is a good list for someone looking for STEM-related books.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

I was fascinated by robots as a kid.  I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.  I longed for the Omnibot 2000 in the Sears Wishbook.

Robots have come a long way.  In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk like science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The robot had a very sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial intelligence.  As with most complex things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.

If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical book.  In addition, you’ll get introduced to some freaky sci-fi.  You may even get as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Interstate highway system in the United States is one of the most enormous structures built.  Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete because it needs constant repair and maintenance.  The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid Highways go back to 1916.

Earl Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads.  If you interested in automobiles or transportation, it’s a good read.

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel.  It covers almost a century of history, but many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era.  That was a time of great technological innovation.

Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand.  Railways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Suez and Panama Canals, and Hoover Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic books.  Iron Man was cool.  Spider-Man’s web shooters were very cool.  Superhero comics are full of fantasy, admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict have inspired many to study STEM in reality.

Physicist John Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes.  Sometimes comics get there science right.  Even when they get it wrong, it can be instructive.  If you know what people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this book to be a great introduction to physics.

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math.  I endured a lot of math classes to study engineering.  Reading David Acheson’s 1089 and All That did not require such endurance.  For one reason, it is a short book.  For another, Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow the outline of the math he discusses.

I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math.  1089 can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math phobias.  Just take a deep breath, relax, and follow along as well as you can.  You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a way.

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge.  Written for the bridge’s 100^th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington.  John Roebling was a German immigrant who built many suspension bridges and owed a wire-making business.  He gave his son and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a bridge that is almost 130 years old?  It’s because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies.  Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy.  As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Is there a difference between science and engineering?  Is it important?

Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes there is an important difference.  At heart, science is about increasing knowledge.  Engineering is about invention.  Of course, new knowledge makes new invention possible.  Just as often, though, engineering runs ahead of science.  Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments to conduct new observations and experiments.  The invention of the microscope made possible the science of microbiology.  Steam engines were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science (study of natural things) or branch of physics.

Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science.  Policy, science, and engineering play off of each other a lot.  Most of my career as an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by science writer Steven Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology.  Epidemiology is a medical science that uses statistics to help us understand how diseases operate in a population.  Using various statistical and geographic tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician John Snow demonstrated that cholera, once a recurring plague that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne disease.  This understanding, initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent the spread of the disease.  For those who say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and science and policy) were used to make a great difference.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

It is not much publicized today that the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806 had a partly scientific mission.  Captains Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the western territories.  It was also hoped that they would find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.  In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and commercial hopes the expedition carried.

Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition is that it was a great adventure.  There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful adventurers and explorers. 

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to admit.  Right now, thousands of very young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking their toys to see what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression of vacancy and concentration.

Jan Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a morbid book.  It is sometimes humorous, especially in consideration of topic.  From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over time.  The fears and activities of our forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of what they knew.  Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility.  Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.

If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→ from Joanne Loves Science or these recommendations→ from STEM Friday.  By the way, I also write about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.

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On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis

I wrote this for a class in public administration back in 1997. You can tell it’s for a class because it’s longer than the reviews I’d normally write for this blog. I have the sense from reading it that the assignment must have involve answering particular questions about the book. I got an A-. The hyperlinks are added, but I haven’t changed it otherwise from what I wrote the first time.
Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Bennis’ premise is that leadership comes out of the state of being of the leader. Leadership starts with a leader’s capacity for self-invention, to shape himself with learning and reflection as opposed to being shaped by circumstances. In Bennis’ words, “No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders.”

Bennis’ process of self-invention begins with self-knowledge. He proposes four lessons to gaining self-knowledge. First, “you are your own best teacher”; learning is essential. Second is to accept responsibility for your own education. Third, “you can learn anything you want to learn.” Finally, reflection is necessary to develop understanding and a leader must question his experience to learn. Leaders innovate and learn from experience without fear of mistakes. According to Bennis’ definition, a leader is someone in the front, doing things others have not done.

A leader must add knowledge of the world to self-knowledge. Bennis says that a leader should learn about the world through participation rather than reaction. One learns by trying to change something as well as experiencing it as it is. The conscious learner seeks broad experience, learns from others and from mistakes.

A leader must trust his instincts. Bennis uses Emerson’s term “blessed impulse.” Blessed impulse is a tool for making decisions in a world to complex to be completely understood.

Leaders must deploy themselves. By this Bennis means a leader must practice self-expression. Deploying oneself is offset against being deployed by others or the voices of others on one’s head.

Leaders must “get people on their side.” Bennis prescribes constancy, congruity of words and action, reliability and integrity.

Bennis also speaks more generally about the characteristics and roles of leaders. These are similar to what might be found in other books on leadership.


Bennis calls the organization the primary form in American society. He challenges leaders to shape their organizations, and shape society, to make them work in a rapidly changing world. He encourages executives to empower junior leaders in their organizations to teach them leadership through experience.

Throughout, Bennis uses the experience of twelve leaders gleaned from interviews. Bennis includes a brief biography of each leader at the end.

At first, it seems that Bennis says that one becomes a leader by being a leader. This is what he says, but he does not leave the reader hanging. Bennis’ perspective is what is unique about the book. Leadership is the expression of the character, qualities, values and personality of a leader. His is not a direct call for us to become leaders, but for us to become ourselves. Leadership will follow.

This may be a difficult lesson. Buyers of books on leadership are probably more interested in learning the skills of leadership and management to help them in their current situations. Bennis says express yourself. If you are doing what you think you ought to do, if others deploy you, you will not be a leader. Self-expression may take you to something different.

The first step to leadership is self-knowledge. A useful tool is self-evaluation, what Bennis calls “tests and measures.” Bennis offers a set of four tests—really four statements. One could apply the tests with pencil and paper, making lists in response to each statement. Of all the tools and suggestions in the book, this set of tests is the most clear and immediately applicable. A reader wanting to apply Bennis’ lessons would do well to start here.

Little else can be used immediately. Changes in point of view and lifestyle take time. One might argue that only a few Bennis’ suggested activities are specific to developing leadership. To me, much of it sounds fun and interesting. That is the point Bennis is trying to make: leadership comes out of broad experience, education, perspective, desire, mastery of one’s discipline and synthesis of ideas.

My own experience validates this. I am as proud of my single published poem as I am of my accomplishments as an engineer or public servant. The skills and abilities exercised by writing are different from those exercised by engineering. I am persuaded that, though seemingly unrelated, one improves the other in me.

Bennis’ somewhat artificial distinction between managers and leaders is a shortcoming. He makes a manager sound like something one would not want to be. He list skills and characteristics developed from the “education” of a leader and the “training” of a manager. All seemingly undesirable things are on the manager side. On might argue tat several management skills, like deduction and common sense, would be useful to a leader.

Most of the interviews are businessmen, but some come from public service agencies and professions. In may seem that businessmen are more susceptible to “surrendering to the context”—the bottom line, the corporate culture, the style of a boss to be pleased—but public service leaders must face their own context. A public servant may readily accept his organization’s view of the way things should be or done, what is important and who to involve without ever considering his own vision, ability and desire.

It may be more important for public section leadership to use self-expression. While a business leader may have the satisfaction of bringing a product to market, making a profit, even gaining notoriety, a public leader may never see his vision achieved. A public leaders’ satisfaction may have to come from living the life he wants to live.

A particular item addressed by Bennis that may be of use to one in public service is getting people on your side. A public leader may have little to rely on besides his integrity and “voice”—an ability to change the climate of his organization and shape it to work more effectively. As important as it is, Bennis can offer little on the subject except constancy, congruity, reliability and integrity. He says to be someone others might follow. He offers no lessons on persuasion, though if persuasion can be taught, it may be of little benefit to those who lake those characteristics.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time by James L. Garlow
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Developing the Leader Within by John C. Maxwell
The Difference Maker by John C. Maxwell
Winning with People by John C. Maxwell

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Have you ever wondered about those people who can remember names, phone numbers, birthdays and odd facts with ease? Some people have prodigious memories. How do they do it?

Joshua Foer began to ask these questions when he covered the 2005 U.S. Memory Championship for Slate. Within a few minutes, the mental athletes at this event could memorize a poem, a deck of cards or a thousand random numbers. A year later, he returned to that event as a competitor, and he won. Walking with Einstein is Foer’s recounting of his year of training in memory techniques and his exploration of the meaning of memory.

This book is not a manual on memory techniques, though Foer briefly describes them. You can find them described in more detail elsewhere. Many of the techniques are ancient, or elaborations on ancient techniques. The discovery of the primary technique is attributed to Simonides, a Greek poet who lived about 500 years before Christ. After the collapse of a banquet hall, which he narrowly escaped because he stepped out to greet a messenger, he discovered he could picture in his mind where every guest had been seated, and was able to identify the location of the bodies. Later authors built upon this idea of a “memory palace,” and it was widely used before the invention of printing.

The basic idea is simple. We have amazing capacities to remember locations and images, so just tie things we want to remember to an image and place. First, pay attention to what you want to remember (it may only take a second). Next, form a memorable image that will remind you of the thing you want to remember. The more outrageous the image is the better it will work. Serious mnemonists develop systems of images. Finally, “place” those images in a memory palace, preferably some real place you know very well. It turns out that the main thing may be the attentiveness all of this technique requires and the multiple paths to remembering you create.

Like Foer, I was disappointed that feats mental athletes perform are not things I want to do. I’d like to be better at remembering names, but all I may need to do to improve is pay attention. I’d like to be able to remember passages of text, but this is very difficult even using mnemonics.

The more interesting thing in the book turns out to be Foer’s exploration of the place of memory in our history and culture. In an age before books, and especially before indexed books, it was very difficult to store information anywhere outside of memory. Even if you read something on a scroll, it would not be easy to find it again. If you wanted quick access to something, you needed to memorize it. People would intensely study the few texts they had and got to know them very well, possibly memorizing them entirely.

Books made accessing information much easier and therefore remembering less important. The Internet has made tons of information accessible in an instant. We have shifted away from valuing intensive study to valuing extensive study, or being widely read. We don’t know as deeply, but we know how to access information for a variety of places.

Memory is not a valueless art in our age. Memorizing techniques engage the imagination to create memorable images. In reverse, our memories are the feedstock of our imaginations. Our creativity, innovation, and invention draws upon the things we remember and the many connections we form between memories. For a creative mind to invent, it needs to be stocked with useful memories.

Similarly, memory has value in defining ourselves. Who we are as an individual is largely defined by our habits and memories. In a sense, the more we remember, the fuller are our lives. Shared memories are part of how we relate to others, and shared knowledge is important to culture.

I started reading this book with an interest in improving memory. My takeaway ends up being that I want to be more attentive to life. I want to form the most vivid memories I can of the people and events that are important to me.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

If you want to improve you memory, you may also be interested in a fish oil supplement.

Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. New York: Penguin, 2011.

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Invention and innovation tend to occur only where property is safe from seizure

Invention and innovation tend to occur only where property is safe from seizure either because the state has become disorganized or because its powers have been curtailed.

-Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel by Frances & Joseph Gies

Among many the Middle Ages, between the Classical period and the Renaissance, is still thought of as the Dark Ages.  In their book Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel, Frances and Joseph Gies summarize scholarship that shows that the Medieval period was one of commercial and technological advancement that welcomed invention and the dispersion of knowledge.

The authors present a history of technology beginning with the contributions of Greek and Roman civilization and culminating with European developments on the cusp of the Age of Discovery.  The period in between is sometimes called the Dark Ages because of the lack of documentary history, the loss of the centralizing influence of Roman Empire, and the loss of Greek texts and knowledge in much of Europe.  The Gieses attempt to debunk the notion that this time was “dark” in the sense of being backward, especially superstitious, and lacking in advancement in knowledge, commerce, science, and especially technology.

From a technological point of view, the Middle Ages didn’t inherit from the Greeks or Romans much more than they might have learned for more ancient civilizations.  The Greeks little esteemed the useful arts.  The Romans were very practical adopters of technology, and they certainly did things on a large scale, but their main contribution was size and organization.  Medieval Europe more fruitfully borrowed and built upon technology from China.  Ancient China had very advance technology in comparison to contemporary civilizations, and the spice trade aided the transmission of technology, in the form of both devices and ideas, from East to West.

I think some of the greatest advances in this period occurred in architecture and materials.  In architecture, builders began to move away from Roman circular arches to something more like true arches.  This, along with the flying buttress, another Medieval development, made a new architecture of more open and brighter spaces possible.

Materials greatly improved, too, especially iron.  Either directly or as an idea, iron-making technology moved from China to Europe.  The blast furnace gave Europeans the ability to make cast iron.  Though casting iron parts was in their grasp, the more significant issue was that a lot more iron could be made.  Iron tools and parts made a host of other technology practicable.

Technological changes led to cultural changes, too.  Improved applications of animal and water power to agriculture and food production led to a transition away from slavery to a serf-tenant system in which the people who worked the field had a right to portion of their production.  Agricultural surpluses led to the development of cities along with a decline of bound serfs rise of free tradesmen.  The development of manufacturing led to all kinds of trade and improvements in commercial practices including double-entry bookkeeping.

I think this book may be a good introduction to the history of technology for people seeking an entry point to the field.  It is neither too technical nor too academic in its style.  It covers a period of history that is not as well covered by other popular books.  It also acknowledges and summarizes the technology of the immediately preceding and succeeding ages, so it covers a very wide timeframe.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp 

The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark

Gies, Frances, & Joseph Gies. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages.  New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Links related to Medieval science and technology

Grotesque mummy head reveals advanced medieval science

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Thanks for your patience. Thanks to everyone who follows Keenan’s Book Reviews.

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