An electrifying thought-provoking exploration of how the digital era is reshaping our world
by bestselling Women's Prize-winning writer Naomi Alderman From the award-winning
bestselling author of The Power What's the most useful thing you could know about your own
life? In this era-defining book developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series Naomi
Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all:
how do we understand and navigate the epoch we're living through? She calls this epoch the
Information Crisis. The internet has flooded us with more knowledge opinions ideas
opportunities as well as verbal attacks and misinformation than ever before. It lets us learn
more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly it brings us together and also divides us
in new ways it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no
going back. But we have been here before. In fact this is humanity's third information crisis.
The first the invention of writing 5 000 years ago and the second the invention of the
printing press 600 years ago drastically reshaped our perceptions interactions and mental
landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information people become afraid
and angry unsettled and distressed as well as more knowledgeable educated and curious. By
looking at those previous information crises both the turmoil and the advances Alderman asks
what we can learn from the past to better understand our present and prepare for our future.
Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today
explores how new technology opens up new ways of being and helps us chart a way forward (once
again) through the turbulent seas of information overload. 'Alderman is one of our most
surprising and delightful public intellectuals and this book grapples wonderfully with our
current schisms and their historical precedents' JON RONSON 'Alderman helps us see the digital
information crisis with fresh eyes sharing profound wisdom and showing us how to avoid
sacrificing our humanity for the sake of being right on the internet' OLIVER BURKEMAN
