Customer Reviews

Twin Tracks: The Unexpected Origins of the Modern World

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The unexpected origins of the modern world. If you've ever played the game of "Six degrees from Kevin Bacon" you'll at least understand this book. Whether you enjoy it or not depends on how much you can focus your attention because this is one hop, skip, and jump book. The author takes an event and shows how it is connected to another event much later in time by a series of meetings, mentors, friends, coincidences, etc. Then another such series is also described with the same start and end point. Wow! Isn't that amazing! And he does this again and again and again. Like "six degrees" you find that almost anything in this world is related to almost anything if you draw our the relationships thin enough. After the third or fourth thread I was exhausted at trying to follow the bouncing ball and gave up on the book.