It is fast becoming clear that our lives revolve around the powers of emergence. Order arrives from the bottom-up, not top-down. Complexity is resolved through simplicity. Everywhere the same laws are obeyed, the same swarm logic is at work. "Emergence" looks at the cities we inhabit, the media frenzies we suffer and the games we play, showing how individual actions without central planning often create a wonderfully adaptive communal intelligence. In this compelling, revelatory book, Johnson investigates the artificial emergence which is bringing sweeping cultural and political change in its wake. Rich with insights into the future, this book allows us to witness the exhilating arrival and sudden ascendancy of a potent new idea.

Emergence : The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software

History

JOHNSON, STEVEN

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Penguin??Books

Tune in, turn on and get smarter. "The Simpsons", "Desperate Housewives", "The Apprentice", "The Sopranos", "Grand Theft Auto": We're constantly being told that popular culture is just mindless entertainment. But, as Steven Johnson shows, it's actually making us more intelligent. Here he puts forward a radical alternative to the endless complaints about reality TV, throwaway movies and violent video games. He shows that mass culture is actually more sophisticated and challenging than ever before. When we focus on what our minds have to do to process its complex, multilayered messages, it becomes clear that it's not dumbing us down but smartening us up.

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

A great story of medical discovery in the dark places of London.

The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Penguin

Where do good ideas come from? And what do we need to know and do to have more of them? In "Where Good Ideas Come From", Steven Johnson, one of our most innovative popular thinkers, explores the secrets of inspiration. He identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of great ideas, from the cultivation of hunches to the importance of connectivity and how best to make use of new technologies. Most exhilarating is his conclusion: with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. By recognizing where and how patterns of creativity occur - whether within a school, a software platform or a social movement - he shows how we can make more of our ideas good ones.

Where Good Ideas Come from: The Seven Patterns of Innovation

Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age

Business & Money

Business Culture

Unabridged CDs ? 6 CDs, 7 hours Bestselling author Steven Johnson recounts? in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion?the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America?s Founding Fathers.

The Invention of Air

Americas

Penguin Audio

“The ubiquity of the digital lifestyle has forced us to write and think about technology in a different way.”―Steven Johnson 
In his Introduction to this beautifully curated collection of essays, Steven Johnson heralds the arrival of a new generation of technology writing. Whether it is Nicholas Carr worrying that Google is making us stupid, Dana Goodyear chronicling the rise of the cellphone novel, Andrew Sullivan explaining the rewards of blogging, Dalton Conley lamenting the sprawling nature of work in the information age, or Clay Shirky marveling at the “cognitive surplus” unleashed by the decline of the TV sitcom, this new generation does not waste time speculating about the future. Its attitude seems to be: Who needs the future? The present is plenty interesting on its own. 
Packed with sparkling essays culled from print and online publications, The Best Technology Writing 2009 announces a fresh brand of technology journalism, deeply immersed in the fascinating complexity of digital life.
 The Best Technology Writing 2009 includes essays written by: Julian Dibbell Dana Goodyear Farhad Manjoo David Talbot Andrew Sullivan Robin McKie Dalton Conley Nicholas Carr The Onion danah boyd Joshua Davis Clive Thompson Elizabeth Kolbert Dan Hill Sharon Weinberger Kevin Kelly Luke O'Brien Adam Stermbergh
and Clay Shirky

Best Technology Writing (2009) (The Best Technology Writing)

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Yale University Press

“A house of wonders itself. . . . Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d'ya-knows” —The New York Times Book Review From the New York Times–bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Farsighted, a look at the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained. This lushly illustrated history of popular entertainment takes a long-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 lies wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused. Johnson’s storytelling is just as delightful as the inventions he describes, full of surprising stops along the journey from simple concepts to complex modern systems. He introduces us to the colorful innovators of leisure: the explorers, proprietors, showmen, and artists who changed the trajectory of history with their luxurious wares, exotic meals, taverns, gambling tables, and magic shows. In Wonderland, Johnson compellingly argues that observers of technological and social trends should be looking for clues in novel amusements. You’ll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

Humor & Entertainment

Riverhead Books

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

Did you drink a glass of water today? Did you turn on a light? Did you think about how miraculous either one of those things is when you did it? Of course not--but you should, and New York Times bestselling author Steven Johnson has. This adaptation of his adult book and popular PBS series explores the fascinating and interconnected stories of innovations--like clean drinking water and electricity--that changed the way people live. Innovation starts with a problem whose solution sets in motion all kinds of unexpected discoveries. That's why you can draw a line from pendulums to punching the clock at a factory, from ice blocks to summer movie blockbusters, from clean water to computer chips. In the lively storytelling style that has made him a popular, bestselling author, Steven Johnson looks at how accidental genius, brilliant mistakes, and unintended consequences shape the way we live in the modern world. Johnson's "long zoom" approach connects history, geography, politics, and scientific advances with the deep curiousity of inventors or quirky interests of tinkerers to show how innovation truly comes about. 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 desert to the herculean effort to literally raise up the city of Chicago to laser labs straight out of a sci-fi movie. In other words, it's the story of how we got to now!

How We Got To Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

Children's Books

Science, Nature & How It Works

Viking Books for Young Readers

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Books by JOHNSON, STEVEN