How We Got to Now

The things that we most commonly tend to study in history are kings, emperors, wars, monuments, and great inventors. However, there have been other studies - especially those carried out by academics in the recent twentieth century - which focus on the daily life of individuals and on the impact of scientific discoveries and ideas, digging deep into the anthropological scaffolding that supports the very concept of history.

Steven Johnson is one such academic, who has sifted through centuries of the human experience to consider which discoveries changed the history of human evolution forever. Rather than focus on specific moments in history or specific inventions, he has identified six networks of ideas, six areas, whose technological development has enabled epoch-making changes: glass, cold, sound, cleanliness, time, and light.

Every small discovery related to each of these elements has had an impact that is difficult to quantify, because its exact path of development has been diluted over hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. In fact, the course of biological evolution is highly complex, and very often unpredictable. Some innovations or natural changes in a particular habitat can have effects on issues light years away from when they began. For example, the development of Gutenberg's printing press created a sudden need for reading glasses (new readers highlighted a widespread problem of impaired vision) and the subsequent market that developed led to the invention of the microscope. The term "hummingbird effect" is used to describe these kinds of unexpected domino effects caused by the invention of something new. Even the hummingbird has been influenced in its peculiar evolution by a series of other factors related to the evolution of flowers and insects, in a chain of causes and effects that is difficult to unravel. The story of how plants and animals have influenced each other over the ages, however, tells of a universal truth that often goes unnoticed: there is a type of evolution that does not involve conflict, but symbiosis, and it is called co-evolution.

When seen from this perspective, human history is much less clear-cut, but certainly more fascinating. The role of the individual in social processes seems to be losing its importance, and in part it is, yet every new human invention comes with a series of contrasting effects which then sparks the question about whether humans should intervene personally to mitigate them. Not only is our future in the hands of those who have the courage to live creative and original lives, it is also highly unpredictable. In fact, the greatest inventors have always challenged commonly accepted beliefs, and become deeply lost in their own visions because they believe in something so wholeheartedly.

Steven Johnson's book focuses mainly on Western discoveries and historical developments, whilst also acknowledging that many other stories could be written. However, European states and the Americas have dominated the world for many centuries, and their impact – for better or for worse – is undeniable. Today's globalised network is also the result of this history, and an analysis that denies the very dynamics that have been going on around the world since the beginning of time, would be to only tell half the story.