Circles : Fifty Roundtrips Through History Technology Science Culture
Product Description
From the bestselling author of The Knowledge Web come fifty mesmerizing journeys into the history of technology, each following a chain of consequential events that ends precisely where it began. Whether exploring electromagnetic fields, the origin of hot chocolate, or DNA fingerprinting, these essays all illustrate the surprisingly circular nature of change.
In "Room with (Half) a View," for instance, Burke muses about the partly obscured railway bridge outside his home on the Thames, a musing which sets off a chain of thought that leads from the bridges engineer to Samuel Morse, to firearms inventor Sam Colt, and finally to a trombonist named Gustav Holst, who once lived in the very house that blocks Burkes view.
So it goes with Burkes entertaining and informative essays as each one highlights the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated events and innovations. Romantic poetry leads to brandy distillation tonic water connects through Leibniz to the first explorers to reach the North Pole. This unique collection is sure to stimulate and delight history buffs, technophiles, and anyone else with a healthy intellectual curiosity.
Amazon.com Review
Unlike Perry Mason, James Burke does not try to assemble watertight (if convoluted) cases. His essays in the history of technology are more like random walks, paeans to serendipity. In
The Knowledge Web Burke attempted to duplicate on paper the feeling of inter- and cross-linking trends that you find in history and on the World Wide Web. The essays in
Circles are more artificially restricted, topological circles that wrap around. A typical trip goes from the Space Shuttle to
Skylab to Werner von Braun to feedback to digestion to lab animals to the Humane Society to sea rescues to charting sea currents to Foucault to astronomical photography to the solar corona to
Skylab. Whew!
"There are two reasons why I make such play of the unstructured nature of history, but then, in this book, give it a formal shape," Burke says. "One reason is that otherwise these essays would have mirrored the serendipity I described, just going from anywhere to anywhere.... Choosing to go round in circles, and to end each story where it begins, lets me illustrate perhaps the most intriguing aspect of serendipity at work, which shows itself in the way in which history generates the most extraordinary coincidences." He might have added that trying to guess how Burke proposes to connect all this up makes these tales a game for reader as well as writer, a most educational amusement. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :Paperback
Label :Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer :Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup :Book
Studio :Simon & Schuster
Publisher :Simon & Schuster
EAN :9780743249768
Price :$14.00USD
Lowest Price :$1.37USD
Customer ReviewsBurke is trying too hard
Rating Point :2 Helpful Point :0
After producing the marvelous and engaging series "Connections", Burke seems to have gone to the well one to many times with "Circles". Burke trys to take his Connections approach to identify complete circles in the connections of history. But rather than taking the connections where they lead, this self-imposed, artificial constraint leads to a combination of wild leaps and tidy little packages that just doesnt ring true. Burke comes out looking like hes just trying too hard, and a reader whos really paying attention will just refuse to follow.
Okay, there are some curious and interesting historical connections identified here, but its just too hard to follow Burkes route just to glean a few gems.
James Burke is fantastic Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :1 I am a true JamesBurkeophile. I love all of his books and DVDs. I found this book, like his others, to be full of quirky facts, engaging writing and thorough research. I would highly recommend this book to anyway with a bent in science, history or even politics.
Another Classic Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :2 Does anyone write about technological history better than James Burke? In this volume, Burke literally takes the reader in circles as he connects ideas, inventions, and innovations that have changed our world. Whether by purpose or serendipity, some of the critical inventions and discoveries came about in highly entertaining ways. With its brief chapters, this is one of those books that it you can easily pick up and set down, and pick up again days later.
Round and round we gowhere we stop,only Burke knows. Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0 This book consists of 50 different trips through
Technology,Science,History,Culture,Personal Relationships and a few other thingsbut in the end they all end up where the trip started.
The trips in this book are reminiscent of the trips Burke used to take us on in his TV series Connections. I enjoyed the trips on Connections much more than the trips in this this book for a number of reasons. Since the connections that are detailed are interesting asides which are quite surprising and entertaining but not particularly earth shattering.These trips are little else than entertainingand as such they are far better presented with video than simply by prose.
Dizzying Cotton Candy Journey Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0 James Burkes works are always engaging, stimulating, exhilarating, fascinating and awe-inspiring. Genius, it is often said, is evidenced not by what the genius knows, but by the connections the genius sees. Burke is by any reasonable definition therefore a certifiable genius.
"Circles," unlike earlier works "Connections" or "The Day the Universe Changed," has no illustrations and touches on the myriad of intersecting lives in history in only the briefest mention. This is "Connections" on steroids or "The Day the Universe Changed" for the ADD set. Burkes breakneck pace in racing through history makes you wish for more detail, more context, more elaboration -- which of course is a good nudge in the proper direction. Reading his clever essays is pleasurable on several levels, but the panoply of characters whisks by so fast youre left with not much but intellectual whiplash at the end.
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