The Soft Edge: Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution

The Soft Edge: Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution

by PaulLevinson (Author)

Synopsis

The Soft Edge is a one-of-a-kind history of the information revolution. In his lucid and direct style, Paul Levinson, historian and philosopher of media and communications, gives us more than just a history of information technologies. The Soft Edge is a book about theories on the evolution of technology, the effects that human choice has on this (r)evolution, and what's in store for us in the future.

Paul Levinson's engaging voice guides us on a tour that explains how communications media have been responsible for major developments in history and for profound changes in our day-to-day lives. Levinson presents the intriguing argument that technology actually becomes more human. We see how information technologies are selected on the basis of how well they meet human needs. Why is email more like speech than print is? Why didn't the arrival of television destroy the radio? These and many more thought provoking questions are answered in The Soft Edge.

Boldly extending and deepening the pathways blazed by McLuhan, Paul Levinson has provided us with a brilliant and exciting study of life with our old media, our new media, and the media still to come.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 280
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 11 Sep 1997

ISBN 10: 0415157854
ISBN 13: 9780415157858

Media Reviews
Paul Levinson takes a thoughtful and perceptive dander through the Information Wilderness. Beautifully written, the author has the gift of illuminating the mundane and putting a different spin on developments we no longer think about as being part of a communication revolution. This is a highly readable and thought-provoking book..
-Moira Duncan Managing Information, Dec 1997
This history provides a refreshing contrast to texts that are little more than litanies of dates and/or tomes of doomsayers. It provides excellent insights and is suggested reading for those with a keen interest in media.
- Educator
The Soft Edge is a wonderful book, both as a historical survey of how information technologies have evolved and as a critique of how some media critics have portrayed computers and the Internet.
- Technology and Society
Remarkable in both scholarly sweep and rhetorical lyricism ...what first promises to be the digital Origin of the Species turns out to be a sequel to The Odyssey: media's progress is presented as an epic journey toward freedom, unseating censors along the way.
- Wired
Smart, spare, yet deep, and heartily recommended.
- Library Journal