Informatica?the updated edition of Alex Wright's previously published Glut?continues the
journey through the history of the information age to show how information systems emerge.
Today's information explosion may seem like a modern phenomenon but we are not the first
generation?nor even the first species?to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long
before the advent of computers human beings were collecting storing and organizing
information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives Greek libraries to Christian
monasteries. Wright weaves a narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect
colonies Stone Age jewelry medieval monasteries Renaissance encyclopedias early computer
networks and the World Wide Web. He suggests that the future of the information age may lie
deep in our cultural past. We stand at a precipice struggling to cope with a tsunami of data.
Wright provides some much-needed historical perspective. We can understand the predicament of
information overload not just as the result of technological change but as the latest chapter
in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.
