Customer Reviews

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

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This really is an odd book. The best way that I can describe it is like Tom Wolfe revising a manuscript of which portions were written by Marshall McLuhan and others by Ray Kurzweil. The author, David Weinberger, brings his broad knowledge and reading into play: Descartes, Gaston Bachelard, John Searle, history, philosophy, etc. Likewise, he includes and interweaves technical information and figures such as Bob Metcalfe, one of the inventors of ethernet. Weinberger does an excellent job of showing connections between various small pieces of information, thus forming an analogy to the web within his explanation of it.

Yet, much of the book seems frivolous and pedestrian, so that it seems that a volume half the size would have conveyed the same information in a more satisfying, meatier meal. Overall, I think that the book is interesting, and contains several good ideas, but find the writing, while clear, a bit too slow moving. Moreover, there is a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to the way that Weinberger blends technical information with personal experience, leaving a feeling of disjuncture in the work.

If you are looking for new ways to approach the web, then this book will fall short. However, if you enjoy humanist responses to technology, found Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines interesting, and perhaps are a fan of Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, then Small Pieces should provide interesting, additional insight as well as a pleasant afternoon read.