Twin Tracks: The Unexpected Origins of the Modern World [Paperback]

James Burke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2007

Twin Tracks is a landmark book of real-world stories that investigates the nature of change and divines as never before the unlikely origins of many aspects of contemporary life. In each of the work's twenty-five narratives, we discover how the different outcomes of an important historical event in the past often come together again in the future.

Each chapter starts with an event -- such as the U.S. attack on Tripoli in 1804 -- that generates two divergent series of consequences. After tracking each pathway as it ranges far and wide through time and space, Burke shows how the paths finally and unexpectedly converge in the modern world.

Twin Tracks pinpoints the myriad ways the future is shaped, whether by love, war, accident, genius, or discovery. For instance, in "The Marriage of Figaro to Stealth Fighter," Burke's twin tracks start with the composer of the opera and the French spy from whose play he stole the plot. The tracks then encompass, among other things, freemasonry, the War of Independence, Captain Cook, jellyfish, Jane Austen, and audio tape. Ultimately, the convergence of the two Figaro tracks sets the stage for the development of Gulf War Stealth aircraft.

Wonderfully accessible and lucidly written, Twin Tracks offers an amusing and instructive new view of the past and the future.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Burke, author and public television star, returns with another quirky look at the way history works. In Twin Tracks, Burke connects "trigger events" with unexpected outcomes. For instance, the invention of the lens-grinding lathe leads to hairdressing, and the debut of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro connects to development of the stealth fighter jet. These events are tied together via two tracks, one written along the book's left-hand pages, and one along the right. The narratives meet up in the end, giving readers a clear idea that the lines of history can be quite subjective. Some of the examples even run backward, as when Burke explains the connections between smallpox and the Big Bang. While Burke is justifiably famous for linking historical events, the paths he takes, especially those involving lots of unfamiliar names, can be tricky to follow:

In 1710 the art collection was sold to Philip, regent of France, in a deal brokered by Benedetto Luti, the best painter in Rome at the time.... That year Luti took on an assistant.... By 1714 William Kent was painting originals.... His patron in all this was the trillionaire Earl of Burlington.

The best way to read Twin Tracks, as with any of Burke's lovely books, is one chapter at a time, taking thinking breaks in between so as not to become overwhelmed by detail. The networks he describes form a more accurate, if more challenging, picture of history's motion than any linear sequence. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Burke is back with another volume of the surprising and frequently serendipitous connections among the seemingly unconnected people, events and discoveries that have shaped our modern world. His work, which by this point comprises a genre in itself (including such titles as The Knowledge Web and The Pinball Effect), meanders through the history of science, medicine and technology, playing an intellectual history version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. His motto: "Everything is connected." As in earlier books, Burke tweaks the form a bit, this time offering 25 pairs of parallel narratives; each pair starts with one "trigger event," then they diverge and reconverge at the end (hence the book's title). Want to know how the Boston Tea Party led to the development of contact lenses, or The Marriage of Figaro to the F-117A stealth fighter? Burke can tell you, following two simultaneous threads that careen off in wildly different directions from the "trigger event," then create the conditions for the end result. One could complain that his connections are sometimes tenuous at best, more synchronicity than cause-and-effect, but that would miss the point-the real fun is in Burke's dry wit and his sheer exuberance as he takes us through centuries of history in mere pages, only to pick a new starting point and do it all over again. B&w illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074325810X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743258104
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,209,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not an exercize in degrees of freedom, December 1, 2004

By 

Mak Thorpe "makthorpe" (Honolulu, Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twin Tracks : The Unexpected Origins of the Modern World (Hardcover)

Burke is an excellent source for people getting an introduction to what is interesting about the history of ideas- in particular the history of techological and scientific ideas.

The reviewer Loveridge suggests that the connections are something like a superficial hopping about, and that really everything is related to everything using the principle of 6 degrees of freedom. This is a superficial analysis and unfair. Without giving away sequences in this book, consider a well known sequence of Burke's related in his popular Connections series. Use of the water wheel in medieval europe employed a cam to lift hammers for use in things like beating metal. This mechanism of cams as used by complicated bell ringing instruments that used a rotating drum with pegs to trip the bell at the correct time. This system of using trips recorded on a passing pattern of "0"s and "1"s, (do something or don't do something) was used in the Jaccard loom to create complicated patterns in woven cloth. Punched cards were used as an innovation and later were used by tabulating machines to conduct the 1890 US census. The tabulating company created by Hollerith later evolved into IBM. It was a simple matter to jump from storing numbers to storing instructions in these binary patterns.

Is the sequence an exercize in 6 degrees of freedom? Not at all. Just because there is no linear causality or intended outcomes between these innovations, does not mean that they are not an accurate recording of a complicated stream of dependencies between these events. The way we came to computers was dependent on the development of the cam. It is possible that we would have come to it by an different avenue, but that is not the point. This is the way it happenned, and it was cirucuitous, and like following a bouncing ball.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Six Degrees of Connections, February 20, 2006

By 

John C. Simpson (Kennesaw, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twin Tracks : The Unexpected Origins of the Modern World (Hardcover)

Although enjoyable, this is not James Burkes best work. This does indeed seem more like "Six Degrees of Connections" at times. Without revealing any sequences here, there are cases that demonstrate Burke's "Trigger Effect". Unfortunately there are too many (for my taste anyway) cases of Mr. X was working on this invention and then he was walking on the sidewalk across from Mr. Y who became famous for something completely different. Because this work concentrates on torturously linking together people rather than connecting the innovations the narrative tends to blend together.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, problems with Kindle edition now removed, January 15, 2011

By 

M. Gosse - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twin Tracks (Kindle Edition)

This is an updated review. When I first purchased this book, the "twin tracks" presentation style was translated poorly across to the Kindle and I gave the review review 3 stars. Subsequently there was an update to the ebook format, which removed the problem, and I have upgraded my review to 5 stars.

If, like me, you're a fan of the chatty/side tracking historian - along the lines of Bill Bryson - then you'll love this book. If you want facts presented with little embellishment, I recommend you find another author.