Key insights from
How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World
Audio available
12 minute read
Published Sep 22, 2015
What you'll learn
Popular science writer and media theorist, Steven Johnson, recounts the history of technologies that have shaped our lives in surprising ways. Here are some of the game-changing innovations he explores.
Key insights
- • What you'll learn
- 1 Historians devote more time and thought to documenting human actions than to understanding how technology has influenced those actions.
- 2 Without glass, we would not have vaccinations, space travel, or high literacy rates.
- 3 Air conditioning moves around cold air, but it has also moved around millions of people over the past century.
- 4 The most impactful use of sound is what it enables us to see rather than what it helps us hear.
- 5 The light bulb and other forms of artificial lighting came about because of what was discovered in a sperm whale’s skull.
Similar titles
