Book review at Salon.com of the book “Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet”
How do we know what we know? A new book takes a long view of knowledge, from ancient oral traditions to the rise of universities and the Internet.
We live in the information age, when networked computers give millions of users unprecedented access to communications and data. But so what? That is, in effect, what Ian McNeely and Lisa Wolverton have to say at the conclusion of “Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet.” The authors are indeed hard to impress. Their small book takes a long view — an exceedingly long view, beginning with the birth of Western civilization in the philosophical academies of ancient Greece and wending its way, century by century, to the present. McNeely and Wolverton remain unpersuaded that the Internet is as revolutionary as it’s cracked up to be.
Full review here.
Recent Comments