The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future

Books are our first and most lasting form of information technology. Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones— they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world. And they still have lessons to teach us.

Polls indicate reading is on the decline, but as we deal with concerns about artificial intelligence and social and political division, the histo...