9780063142916
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Knowing What We Know audiobook

  • By: Simon Winchester
  • Narrator: Simon Winchester
  • Category: Civilization, History
  • Length: 14 hours 19 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: April 25, 2023
  • Language: English
  • (226 ratings)
(226 ratings)
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Knowing What We Know Audiobook Summary

“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world.”  — New York Times

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is award winning writer Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things—no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization—are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness?

Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored, and disseminated knowledge. Examining such disciplines as education, journalism, encyclopedia creation, museum curation, photography, and broadcasting, he looks at a whole range of knowledge diffusion—from the cuneiform writings of Babylon to the machine-made genius of artificial intelligence, by way of Gutenberg, Google, and Wikipedia to the huge Victorian assemblage of the Mundanaeum, the collection of everything ever known, currently stored in a damp basement in northern Belgium.

Studded with strange and fascinating details, Knowing What We Know is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom? Does Rene Descartes’s Cogito, ergo sum—“I think therefore I am,” the foundation for human knowledge widely accepted since the Enlightenment—still hold?

And what will the world be like if no one in it is wise?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

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Knowing What We Know Audiobook Narrator

Simon Winchester is the narrator of Knowing What We Know audiobook that was written by Simon Winchester

About the Author(s) of Knowing What We Know

Simon Winchester is the author of Knowing What We Know

Knowing What We Know Full Details

Narrator Simon Winchester
Length 14 hours 19 minutes
Author Simon Winchester
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date April 25, 2023
ISBN 9780063142916

Subjects

The publisher of the Knowing What We Know is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: history, history books, teacher, buff, history gifts, world, historical, world history, history teacher gifts, gifts for history buffs, civilization, history buff gifts, innovation, historical books, gift, history lovers gifts, lover, civilizations, magic, History, Civilization, History, Reference The BISAC Subject Code is Civilization, History

Additional info

The publisher of the Knowing What We Know is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780063142916.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

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