Information - by Ann Blair & Paul Duguid & Anja-Silvia Goeing & Anthony Grafton

About the Book

"Information technology shapes nearly every part of modern life, and debates about information--its meaning, effects, and applications--are central to a range of fields, from economics, technology, and politics to library science, media studies, and cultural studies. This rich, unique resource traces the history of information with an approach designed to draw connections across fields and perspectives, and provide essential context for our current age of information. Clear, accessible, and authoritative, the book opens with a series of articles that provide a narrative history of information from premodern practices to twenty-first-century information culture. This section focuses on major developments in the creation, storage, search, exchange, management, and manipulation of information, as well as the many meanings and uses of information over time. Coverage spans Europe, North America, and many other places and periods, including the medieval Islamic world and early modern East Asia, as well as the emergence of global networks. A second, alphabetical section includes more than 100 concise articles that cover specific concepts (e.g., data, intellectual property, privacy); formats and genres (books, databases, maps, newspapers, scrolls, social media); people (archivists, diplomats and spies, readers, secretaries, teachers); practices (censorship, forecasting, learning, surveilling, translating); processes (digitization, quantification, storage and search); systems (bureaucracy, platforms, telecommunications); technologies (algorithms, cameras, computers), and much more. The book concludes with an informative glossary, defining terms from "analog/digital" to "World Wide Web.""--

Book Synopsis

A landmark history that traces the creation, management, and sharing of information through six centuries

Thanks to modern technological advances, we now enjoy seemingly unlimited access to information. Yet how did information become so central to our everyday lives, and how did its processing and storage make our data-driven era possible? This volume is the first to consider these questions in comprehensive detail, tracing the global emergence of information practices, technologies, and more, from the premodern era to the present. With entries spanning archivists to algorithms and scribes to surveilling, this is the ultimate reference on how information has shaped and been shaped by societies.

Written by an international team of experts, the book's inspired and original long- and short-form contributions reconstruct the rise of human approaches to creating, managing, and sharing facts and knowledge. Thirteen full-length chapters discuss the role of information in pivotal epochs and regions, with chief emphasis on Europe and North America, but also substantive treatment of other parts of the world as well as current global interconnections. More than 100 alphabetical entries follow, focusing on specific tools, methods, and concepts--from ancient coins to the office memo, and censorship to plagiarism. The result is a wide-ranging, deeply immersive collection that will appeal to anyone drawn to the story behind our modern mania for an informed existence.

• Tells the story of information's rise from 1450 through to today
• Covers a range of eras and regions, including the medieval Islamic world, late imperial East Asia, early modern and modern Europe, and modern North America
• Includes 100 concise articles on wide-ranging topics:

Concepts: data, intellectual property, privacy

Formats and genres: books, databases, maps, newspapers, scrolls and rolls, social media

People: archivists, diplomats and spies, readers, secretaries, teachers

Practices: censorship, forecasting, learning, political reporting, translating

Processes: digitization, quantification, storage and search

Systems: bureaucracy, platforms, telecommunications

Technologies: cameras, computers, lithography

• Provides an informative glossary, suggested further reading (a short bibliography accompanies each entry), and a detailed index
• Written by an international team of notable contributors, including Jeremy Adelman, Lorraine Daston, Devin Fitzgerald, John-Paul Ghobrial, Lisa Gitelman, Earle Havens, Randolph C. Head, Niv Horesh, Sarah Igo, Richard R. John, Lauren Kassell, Pamela Long, Erin McGuirl, David McKitterick, Elias Muhanna, Thomas S. Mullaney, Carla Nappi, Craig Robertson, Daniel Rosenberg, Neil Safier, Haun Saussy, Will Slauter, Jacob Soll, Heidi Tworek, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Alexandra Walsham, and many more.

Review Quotes

"A fascinating multidisciplinary essay collection that will appeal to information history junkies as well as history, journalism, and library science students."-- "Library Journal"

"I did not want it to end. . . . It has thrown my personal information system out of equilibrium and reminded me how many things I still have to learn about my own field of study. There are not too many books I have read to the end and opened back to the introduction before setting it down. Well done. Information: A Historical Companion answers questions I did not know I had."---Jodi Kearns, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology

"Rollicking"---N.J. Enfield, Times Literary Supplement

"Surely the definitive work on the overall subject."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

"This book is an essential work of reference accessible to historians and scholars across the humanities and social sciences. A great deal of good work went into its development, and the results reward it"---James W. Cortada, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Ultimately, Information offers an informative, and indeed fresh, perspective on a phenomenon that, historically and contemporaneously, has been so central to our lives, technologies, and societies. While expertly summarizing existing literature across diverse disciplines, it reveals many exciting convergences between hitherto disparate approaches and creates compelling connections between technology, information, and history."---Marc Kosciejew, Technology and Culture

About the Author

Ann Blair is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University. Paul Duguid is an adjunct full professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Anja-Silvia Goeing is professor of history of education at the University of Zurich and an associate in history at Harvard University. Twitter @debatesovert Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University. Twitter @scaliger