Book Recommendation: The Information

[Steve Bennett]

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick Pantheon, 526 pp., US$29.95 If information is your passion than this book will be a revelation. I've only read a few books that have both inspired, delighted and educated me at the same time. Although each is very different, I put it in the same class as books like Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, and Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The Information is a highly readable analysis of the emergence of the concept of information. Ranging over 5,000 years of human history it provokes thought, shares insights too numerous to mention and delights in equal measure. At the end I just felt grateful that I had read it. It is simply a sweeping achievement - one that I liken to a sketch or painting by Rembrandt. It's impact when you first come across this book is similar to the stop-you-in-your-tracks sense of amazement when you first see a Rembrandt up close and in person. You doubt me? Then read two 'real' reviews of this book: How We Know, reviewed by Freeman Dyson, in The New York review Of Books James Gleick’s History of Information, reviewed by Geoffrey Nunberg, in The New York Times. I'm not going to say anything more. Just buy it!



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