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The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood Audiobook
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(3.00) - 5,035 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.
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"Gleick writes very nicely about a topic that is difficult to pin down exactly. For example, one of the key insights comes from Claude Shannon (ostensibly the hero of the story), who relates how the message itself does not matter, but rather how it gets to where it is going and how it is understood. The early chapters are particularly enjoyable, especially those about pre-electric communication. Some of the later chapters were also fascinating; I particularly enjoyed the discussion of Maxwell's Demon, the work of Charles Babbage, and the chapter on genes as information. However, I sometimes felt that Gleick was overreaching, trying to fit things into a neat box where they didn't really belong. Despite this, the book was crisp and fun reading, and certainly gives the reader a lot to think about."
— Peter (4 out of 5 stars)
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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An Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2011
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A 2011 Los Angeles Times Best Book for Nonfiction
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A 2011 Publishers Weekly Top 100 Book for Nonfiction
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A 2011 Time Magazine Top 10 Book for Nonfiction
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A 2011 Salon Magazine Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction
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A 2011 Boston Globe Book of the Year for Nonfiction
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A 2011 ALA Notable Book for Nonfiction
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A 2011 Barnes & Noble Best Book for Nonfiction
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New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books for Nonfiction, 2011
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A 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Science & Technology
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A 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for General Nonfiction
The Information Listener Reviews
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" This is a fascinating history of information science. Numerous topics I haven't seen covered in a popular science work, including talking drums, non-electric telegraphs, and Shannon's information theory. "
— Heather, 2/6/2014 -
" Very interesting and complex history of information theory, from drumbeats and cuneiform to the Internet. Not afraid to venture into the more technical and detailed aspects of history, which I admire. "
— Hadrian, 2/1/2014 -
" This book was very long and had some extremely interesting sections, and a lot of less interesting sections. I think it could easily have been three standard-length books, one of which would be phenomenal, and the other two were mediocre and bad respectively. The final few chapters about information overload were very tedious, and probably didn't need to be written. I think this book is a must-read for anyone in software or an information-related field (academia, library science); I just wish the material in it was better edited and (at times) better written. "
— Lucas, 1/25/2014 -
" Eh. The information of science rather than the science of information. Well written, if rambling and not particularly groundbreaking. The most interesting part is the final sections where he shares some thoughts on the impact of the internet on communication. "
— Fletcher, 1/20/2014 -
" One of the best books I've ever read. "
— Bear, 12/27/2013 -
" I had to abandon this one. Just couldn't get into it. Too dense. "
— Sally, 12/15/2013 -
" Some chapters much better than others, a mean average rating would be 3 but lost points for inconsistency. "
— Richard, 4/30/2013 -
" This was one of those books I WANTED to like more than I liked. I find that James Gleick, while good at translating to average peeps like me, doesn't really hold my attention. I felt that way about Chaos too. but good. "
— Susan, 4/19/2013 -
" Disappointing, especially compared to Gleick's other work. Obnoxious style, with way too many quotes (an unreadable number) and cutesy intros to chapters. Way too long. "
— A., 8/17/2012 -
" Pretty interesting, it tracks the concept of information throughout the ages before it was even called information. Has some decent insights as to what the future holds for information. "
— William, 7/12/2012 -
" I'm hard to bore, but you did it. You did it reeeaaaalll goooood. "
— walter, 6/8/2012 -
" As insightful as it is long, this book pretty much reshaped the way I think about information and communication. "
— Joe, 5/19/2012 -
" The best book explaining information I've seen yet. Deeply researched and, as always with Gleick, a great read. "
— Dan, 5/21/2011 -
" Not five stars as in perfect, but five stars as in “right up my alley.” "
— Thomas, 5/21/2011 -
" Not ideal before bed reading. But as grand narratives go, it rocked. "
— Elizabeth, 5/9/2011 -
" Not a lot of new stuff in this book, but the stories are put together in a way I have not seen before. The chapter on genetics as pure information was especially illuminating. "
— Kurt, 5/5/2011 -
" I'm putting this up there with Hofstader's Godel Escher Bach in terms of mind-blowingness. <br/> <br/>I think I'm going to go read all of his other books now. "
— John, 5/4/2011 -
" I looked up and saw this book flying OVER MY HEAD! Not Gleick's fault, I'm just too dense to understand the number theory, the theoretical math, etc. At least I felt like I understood more of it than Godel, Escher & Bach by Douglas Hofstadter! "
— David, 5/3/2011
About James Gleick
James Gleick is a leading chronicler of science and technology, the bestselling author of Chaos, Genius, and The Information. His books have been translated into thirty languages. Gleick, a former reporter and editor of the New York Times, lives in New York.
About Rob Shapiro
Rob Shapiro is a musician, writer, voice actor, and Earphones Award–winning narrator. He performed several seasons of radio comedy on Minneapolis Public Radio and voiced the titular lion in Leo the Lion. He is a musician and composer with his critically acclaimed band Populuxe. He is also a business consultant and software system designer.