How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

Did you drink a glass of water today? Did you turn on a light? Did you think about how miraculous either one of those things is when you did it? Of course not--but you should, and New York Times bestselling author Steven Johnson has. This adaptation of his adult book and popular PBS series explores the fascinating and interconnected stories of innovations--like clean drinking water and electricity--that changed the way people live. Innovation starts with a problem whose solution sets in motion all kinds of unexpected discoveries. That's why you can draw a line from pendulums to punching the clock at a factory, from ice blocks to summer movie blockbusters, from clean water to computer chips. In the lively storytelling style that has made him a popular, bestselling author, Steven Johnson looks at how accidental genius, brilliant mistakes, and unintended consequences shape the way we live in the modern world. Johnson's long zoom approach connects history, geography, politics, and scientific advances with the deep curiousity of inventors or quirky interests of tinkerers to show how innovation truly comes about. His fascinating account is organized into six topics: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, light. Johnson's fresh exploration of these simple, single-syllable word concepts creates an endlessly absorbing story that moves from lightning strikes in the prehistoric desert to the herculean effort to literally raise up the city of Chicago to laser labs straight out of a sci-fi movie. In other words, it's the story of how we got to now!

About the Author :
Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of eleven books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, Wonderland, and The Ghost Map. He's the host and co-creator of the Emmy-winning PBS/BBC series How We Got To Now, and the host of the podcast American Innovations. He lives in Brooklyn and Marin County, California with his wife and three sons.

Review :
Praise for Steven Johnson "A great science writer." -- Bill Clinton, speaking at the Health Matters conference "Mr. Johnson, who knows a thing or two about the history of science, is a first-rate storyteller." -- The New York Times "You're apt to find yourself exhilarated...Johnson is not composing an etiology of particular inventions, but doing something broader and more imaginative...I particularly like the cultural observations Johnson draws along the way...[he] has a deft and persuasive touch...[a] graceful and compelling book." -- The New York Times Book Review "Johnson is a polymath. . . . [It's] exhilarating to follow his unpredictable trains of thought. To explain why some ideas upend the world, he draws upon many disciplines: chemistry, social history, geography, even ecosystem science." -- Los Angeles Times "Steven Johnson is a maven of the history of ideas... How We Got to Now is readable, entertaining, and a challenge to any jaded sensibility that has become inured to the everyday miracles all around us." -- The Guardian "[Johnson's] point is simple, important and well-timed: During periods of rapid innovation, there is always tumult as citizens try to make sense of it....Johnson is an engaging writer, and he takes very complicated and disparate subjects and makes their evolution understandable." -- The Washington Post "Through a series of elegant books about the history of technological innovation, Steven Johnson has become one of the most persuasive advocates for the role of collaboration in innovation....Mr. Johnson's erudition can be quite gobsmacking." - The Wall Street Journal "An unbelievable book...it's an innovative way to talk about history." -- Jon Stewart What makes this book such a mind-expanding read is Johnson's ability to appreciate human advancement as a vast network of influence, rather than a simple chain of one invention leading to another, and result is nothing less than a celebration of the human mind. -- The Daily Beast "Fascinating...it's an amazing book!" -- CBS This Morning "A full three cheers for Steven Johnson. He is, by no means, the only writer we currently have in our era of technological revolution who devotes himself to innovation, invention and creativity but he is, far and away, the most readable." -- The Buffalo News The reader of How We Got to Now cannot fail to be impressed by human ingenuity, including Johnson's, in determining these often labyrinthine but staggeringly powerful developments of one thing to the next. -- San Francisco Chronicle A rapid but interesting tour of the history behind many of the comforts and technologies that comprise our world. -- Christian Science Monitor How We Got to Now... offers a fascinating glimpse at how a handful of basic inventions--such as the measurement of time, reliable methods of sanitation, the benefits of competent refrigeration, glassmaking and the faithful reproduction of sound--have evolved, often in surprising ways. -- Shelf Awareness [Johnson] writes about science and technology elegantly and accessibly, he evinces an infectious delight in his subject matter...Each chapter is full of strange and fascinating connections. -- Barnes and Noble Review From the sanitation engineering that literally raised nineteenth-century Chicago to the 23 men who partially invented the light bulb before Thomas Edison, [How We Got to Now] is a many-layered delight.-- Nature Review "A highly readable and fascinating account of science, invention, accident and genius that gave us the world we live in today." --Minneapolis Star Tribune