Book Review by Myra Salzer.
When books are given to me as gifts, I usually resent feeling an obligation to read something I would never have picked up myself. This book, a gift from my entrepreneurial coach, Dan Sullivan, is an exception. Simply put, it’s an exceptional book!
Johnson combines history, science, and story to review the six innovations that really changed the direction of the planet. The six innovations are not, perhaps, what you would guess. It’s not the microchip, it’s not the written word, it’s not language, it’s not agricultural technology, or even the printing press. According to Johnson, the six are:
- Glass
- Cold
- Sound
- Clean
- Time
- Light
Johnson makes a compelling case for each of these innovations, along with the history of how they evolved and were developed, and how they’ve been used.
Glass far from topped my list of guesses as to what would have shaped our world, but if you think about how it’s made it possible to see things we could never have seen before, vis-à-vis spectacles, telescopes, and microscopes, you can see how we have been able to shape our world based on what we would never have known had it not been for the invention of glass.
The ability to make things cold has enabled us to eat balanced meals, worldwide, thanks to the ability to freeze and store refrigerated foods. Air conditioning has completely reshaped migration. We now think nothing of moving to areas like Phoenix or Houston or Miami. These places were inhospitable before air conditioning.
The ability to reproduce sound has changed the course of human connection. We can gather, protest, be entertained, and informed in ways that weren’t possible before sound could be amplified and reproduced. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech would’ve been heard by at most a few scores of people before falling into the oblivion.
Cleanliness goes beyond our ability to stamp out or minimize bacteria-caused illnesses. The entire microchip industry wouldn’t be possible without CLEAN rooms in which the chips could be produced.
Time has always existed. It was just never measured consistently. Before atomic clocks and time zones were developed, each town around the world had its own way of measuring time. Train and flight schedules could never have evolved without a universal agreement on time measurement.
Lastly, light shaped how we live and work. If we didn’t have the ability to see after dark, manufacturing couldn’t produce 24/7, and we’d still be going to sleep shortly after the sun went down. Think about the frequency with which you turn on the lights. The ability to do so wasn’t available just a short few hundred years ago. It’s amazing!
Steven Johnson’s remarkable book is available from Amazon and iTunes. In 2014, it premiered as a 6-part television documentary on PBS, which is also available for purchase from iTunes.