Description
Book SynopsisSpanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative about pre-computer age information explosions.
Trade ReviewGlut is a readable romp through the history of information processing. Wright argues that advances in information technology have always sparked conflict between written and oral traditions.
* New Scientist *
Glut defies classification. From Incan woven threads to Wikipedia, Alex Wright shows us that humans have been attempting to fix categories upon the world throughout history, and that organizing information is a fundamental part of what makes us human. Many books tell you how to organize things—this one tells you why we do it.
* Harper's Magazine *
Glut is a penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on our information age and its historical roots. Alex Wright argues that now is the time to take a hard look at how we have communicated with one another since coming down from the trees, because the way we organize knowledge determines much about how we live.
* Los Angeles Times Book Review *
Alex Wright delivers a fascinating tour of the many ways that humans have collected, organized, and shared information to show how the information age started long before microchips or movable type.
* Publishers Weekly *
This stimulating book offers much opportunity to reflect on the nature and long history of information management as a damper to the panic or the elation we may variously feel as we face ever greater scales of information overload.
* Nature *
