Author(s): Simon Winchester

History | Technology

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—here is award-winning writer Simon Winchester’s 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 things—no need for math, no need for map reading, no need for memorisation—are 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 diffusion—from 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 Mundaneum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind.

Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does René Descartes’ ‘Cogito, ergo sum’—'I think, therefore I am’, the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment—still hold? And what will the world be like if no one in it is wise?

Review:
"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 mankind's earliest attempts at language to the digital worlds we now keep in our pockets. This isn't just a rollicking look back; Winchester asks what these systems do to our minds, for good and ill." -- Los Angeles Times
"...a testament to [Winchester's] abiding interest in history, human innovation, and his distinctive ability to share his insatiable curiosity with enthusiastic readers..... Winchester's 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 Know--that is, how we acquire, retain, and pass on information--and how technology's current capability to do those things for us might be threatening our ability to think." -- Library Journal