Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is award winning writer Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing narrative nonfiction look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when core skills of learning and memory seem to be stripped of all value—no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization—are we risking our ability to think? In this modern information age, as we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?

 Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores the long history of knowledge and how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated it. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion—from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of the printing press, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

 Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder the crucial distinction between information vs. wisdom. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does Rene Descartes’s Cogito, ergo sum—“I think therefore I am,” the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment—still hold?

 And what will the world be like if no one in it is wise?

• A Masterwork of Social History: Follow the path of progress from Gutenberg’s printing press and the first encyclopedia all the way to Google, artificial intelligence, and the tools that define our modern world.
• From Ancient Libraries to the Digital Age: Join a master storyteller on a tour of humanity’s greatest attempts to collect what we know, from scrolls in Alexandria to the sprawling Victorian Mundanaeum and the world of Wikipedia.
• The Human Mind Under Pressure: Confront the essential questions of our time as Winchester asks what happens to our own minds when endless information is just a click away.
• The History of Technology: Explore centuries of human innovation through Simon Winchester’s signature blend of meticulous research and captivating storytelling, filled with strange and fascinating details.

Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.