Knowing What We Know

Knowing What We Know
The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
by Simon Winchester

(Nonfiction, History, Perspective)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*** Named a Best Book for 2023
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classesthis is award winning writer Simon Winchesters brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing thingsno need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorizationare we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?

Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusionfrom the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does Rene Descartess Cogito, ergo sumI think therefore I am, the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenmentstill hold? And what will the world be like if no one in it is wise?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

"With his typical fluency and range, Mr. Winchester...traces the intertwined evolution of knowledge, society and the individual, from ancient illiteracy to the wisdom of the hour, artificial intelligence...Winchester is adroit at arranging information in pursuit of knowledge, and he has an eye for the anecdote...Winchester is a knowledge keeper for our times, and he does us all a service by writing it down." --Wall Street Journal

"Winchester has written about information systems before, as in his 1998 book The Professor and the Madman, about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. In his robust new compendium, the author examines those systems in far grander scope, from mankinds earliest attempts at language to the digital worlds we now keep in our pockets. This isnt just a rollicking look back; Winchester asks what these systems do to our minds, for good and ill." --Los Angeles Times

"[An] ebullient, irrepressible spirit invests this book. It is erudite and sprightly in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has read Winchesters wonderful histories of the Krakatoa eruption, the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Atlantic (among others)." --Sunday Times (London)

"A testament to [Winchesters] abiding interest in history, human innovation, and his distinctive ability to share his insatiable curiosity with enthusiastic readers...Winchesters sheer joy in imparting what he learns is evident on every page...[His] ebullient style and countless irresistible anecdotes and strange facts inspire the reader to knowledge for themselves...Essential reading." --Booklist, starred review

"Erudite and discursive... Winchester gathers fascinating and varied examples from throughout history and around the world... a stimulating cabinet of wonders." --Publishers Weekly

"Erudite, digressive, and brimming with fascinating information." --Kirkus Reviews

"The acclaimed Winchester leaps nimbly from cuneiform writings through Gutenberg to Google and Wikipedia as he examines Knowing What We Knowthat is, how we acquire, retain, and pass on informationand how technologys current capability to do those things for us might be threatening our ability to think." --Library Journal