Steven Johnson

"From the New York Times-bestselling author of Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You, a new look at the power and legacy of great ideas. In this illustrated volume, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences....

"From the New York Times-bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From, a look at the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained. This lushly illustrated history of popular entertainment takes along-zoom approach, contending that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Steven Johnson argues that, throughout history, the cutting edge of innovation...

A thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London-and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world. From the dynamic thinker routinely compared to Malcolm Gladwell, E. O. Wilson, and James Gleick, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner with a real-life historical hero that brilliantly illuminates the intertwined histories...

One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?

"A Young Readers adaptation of the New York Times Bestselling book where author, Steven Johnson, walks readers through the history and impact of six inventions that influence the modern world. His fascinating account is organized into six topics: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, light. Johnson's fresh exploration of these simple, single-syllable word concepts creates an endlessly absorbing story that moves from lightning strikes in the prehistoric...

Emergence is what happens when an interconnected system of relatively simple elements self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behavior. It's a bottom-up model rather than being engineered by a general or a master planner, emergence begins at the ground level. Systems that at first glance seem vastly different--ant colonies, human brains, cities, immune systems--all turn out to follow the rules of emergence. In each of these...

Presents an optimistic assessment of how a technologically connected world can enable a better if different future, outlining a rising model of political change that breaks traditional categories of thinking and enables positive solutions.

"Humans live longer now than they ever have in their more than three hundred thousand years of existence on earth. And most (if not all) of the advances that have permitted the human lifespan to double have happened in living memory. Extra Life looks at vaccines, seat belts, pesticides, and more, and how each of our scientific advancements have prolonged human life. This book is a deep dive into the sciences--perfect for younger readers who enjoy...

"How many legs does an insect have? What's the difference between an arachnid and an arthropod? Why do monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed plants? Find out the answers to these questions, and lots more, in this book featuring slimy, scary, stinky and strange creepy-crawlies on land and in water." -- amazon.com

Join best-selling author Steven Johnson to discover extraordinary stories behind six remarkable ideas that made modern life possible, the unsung heroes who brought them about and the unexpected and bizarre consequences each of these innovations triggered.