The Information

A History, a Theory, a Flood

By: James Gleick

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: A revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.

The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: Aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

©2011 James Gleick (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

"Accessible and engrossing." ( Library Journal)

Good history lesson in information science

I enjoyed this book. it was however at times quite technical, so some might get bored or struggle to finish. The subject is interesting, broad, and dominates our lives today.

Insightful, educational, narrative

Gleick tackling a pretty big challenge of forming a kind of history or encyclopedia of information does admirably. wonders in places (understandable given the topic) but mostly insightful.

overall good

there were places where he had opportunities to go deeper and missed. otherwise excellent

Try it in print instead.

Any additional comments?

I was very much interested in the story, but had trouble keeping track of things. I really needed to be able to flip back and forth to remind myself of parts of the history in order for the currently read parts to make complete sense. This doesn't work well in audio format, and I ended up really wishing I had just bought it in print.

A great read

Perceptive, wide ranging and insightful. Excellent at communicating complex ideas involved in modern mathematical theories of information and randomness.

Brilliant, enlightening, beautifully written

Would you listen to The Information again? Why?

Sure - the book unfolds and builds so effectively.

What other book might you compare The Information to and why?

I read Chaos Theory by Gleick after listening to The Information -- another fascinating book. Gleick is the new voice of the history of science.

Which scene was your favorite?

Gleick's description of how scientists figured out how the talking drums in Africa communicated.

Any additional comments?

A must read for anyone interested in science and the culture at large. Also Rob Shapiro voices the book perfectly - a pleasure to hear him read.

Well written introduction to information theory

What did you love best about The Information?

It follows a logical flow from the discoveries of information theory to our current information age.

Well connected information on information!

I really enjoyed the connecting the dots of the history of our Information Age. He tells it in a fascinating narrative style.

Fascinating account of historical events leading to the Information Age

Gleick pulls together historical events and stories of scientists, theoreticians, mathematicians, and more, to show the evolution of knowledge and “informa

My first intro to Info Theory and not my last

Gleick explains information theory from soups to nuts, from African drum talking through Shannon's information theory. His chapter on information entropy is the first time when I finally started understanding the second law of thermodynamics (since they relate so well).

Because of this book any books that have anything regarding information theory, I ended buying it and listening.