Steven Johnson’s latest book is How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World.
Any guesses which innovations made his short list?
I’ll confess I don’t know if I would have gotten them all, and there are a couple of reasons why. One, because all of these innovations have been around for a really long time. Two, because they are things I (and probably a few other people) often take for granted. Of course, that seems to be part of the point; in the introduction, Johnson notes “This is a history worth telling, in part, because it allows us to see a world we generally take for granted with fresh eyes. Most of us in the developed world don’t pause to think how amazing it is that we drink water from a tap and never once worry about dying forty-eight hours later from cholera.”
Most likely this is why items like soap, candles, even the humble ice cube all make appearances in the book. Still after reading How We Got to Now, it’s clear that clean, light, and cold (all chapter titles) are not only innovations, but are deserving of being included in the six innovations that Johnson maintains “made the modern world”.
Cold is not the first innovation Johnson discusses, but it’s definitely an interesting one, particularly because, as Johnson points out, humans were much more interested in heat and interested in heat thousands of years before cold came into play. And it—the interest in cold–almost never happened. Evidently, marketing ice to warm climates isn’t as easy as it sounds.
While ice cubes may not seem to be that earth-shaking of an innovation, they, as Johnson notes, helped bring about higher quality frozen dinners (because of the flash freezing process) which in turn laid the groundwork for frozen embryos, leading to the conclusion: “Millions of human beings around the world owe their existence to the technologies of artificial cold.” Or another way to look at it: if people weren’t looking to make a quick buck selling ice cut from the pond in their backyard or if people were satisfied with mushy vegetables, millions of people might never have been born.
Not all of the implications are so technological, however. The chapter on sound moves (quite quickly) from Neanderthals singing in caves to sound recording devices to the radio. What was so important about the radio? Probably a lot of things, but Johnson notes that some of the first radio stars were jazz musicians: Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday. It was, according to Johnson, “a profound breakthrough: for the first time, white America welcomed African-American culture into its living room, albeit through the speakers of an AM radio.” Then, in typical Johnson style, the chapter goes on to discuss other forms of sound, including ultrasounds.
This is the effect Johnson discusses in the introduction. He calls it the hummingbird effect; it’s when “an innovation, or cluster of innovations, in one field ends up triggering changes that seem to belong to a different domain altogether.” It’s one of the main premises in the book, and part of what makes it so interesting. Another example of this effect: in the chapter on glass, Johnson starts approximately 26 million years ago in the Libyan Desert where arguably the first glass was formed. The chapter ends in present day Hawaii with the massive observatories on the summit of Mauna Kea. In between we see glass used in decorations and ornaments and the development of cameras and microscopes.
Glass, of course, was also used to make mirrors. But did mirrors make the first “selfies” possible? Perhaps. Johnson argues that there is “a long and storied tradition behind that form of self expression” and that the development of self portraiture coincides with “our ability to manipulate glass” or, more simply put, to create mirrors.
Most likely all these things—the attention to detail, the research, the conclusions—are some of the reasons why former U.S. President Bill Clinton calls Johnson “a great science writer”. But the main reason Johnson is such a great science writer is because he’s just a good writer—a writer with creativity and imagination who knows how to develop a strong sense of place and draw his audience into a book. One such passage, is the opening of Chapter Six: Light:
Imagine some alien civilization viewing Earth from across the galaxies, looking for signs of intelligent life. For millions of years, there would be almost nothing to report… But starting about a century ago, a momentous change would suddenly be visible: at night, the planet’s surface would glow with the streetlights of cities… Viewed from space, the emergence of artificial lighting would arguably have been the single most significant change in the planet’s history since the Chicxulub asteroid collided with Earth sixty-five million years ago…
Johnson doesn’t just know science, he knows his literature, too (perhaps because he holds a graduate degree in the discipline), and literary references from David Henry Thoreau to H.G. Wells are scattered throughout the book.
How We Got to Now is a fascinating study that connects technology with art, history, culture, and psychology. After all, technology, like most things, doesn’t exist in some type of vacuum. Plus the book’s just fun. For folks who want more, be sure to check out the PBS series that Johnson is slated to host in October.