The new renaissance

by Douglas S. Robertson

In The New Renaissance, Robertson offers an important historical perspective on the computer revolution by comparing it to three earlier landmarks of human invention - language, writing, and printing. We see how each of these inventions changed the way we produce, store, and distribute information, and how each one thereby triggered an information explosion that transformed human civilization. But the electronic computer has touched off the largest information explosion yet. It is therefore the most important invention in the history of technology, if not in all history. What can we expect from the most important technological breakthrough in human history? Robertson lays out possible scenarios regarding transformations in science and mathematics, education, language, the arts, and everyday life.