Information: A Historical Companion edited by Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja-Silvia Goeing, and Anthony Grafton

Information as a subject, with its various objects and tools, is a rapidly expanding subfield of history. No longer is it just about knowledge, history of the book, or the expanded use of newspapers and journals. New ways of looking at information in society drawn from the insights of electronics and, most recently, biology and genetics, has led historians to explore the features of information and to debate whether we live in an Information Age. Information is one of the first compendiums that begin the process of codifying what historians understand about the history of knowledge. It demonstrates that the vast supply of information, so conspicuous in today’s society, is not a new phenomenon; it is, rather, the continuing use, volume, and visibility of codified information that human societies have created for thousands of years. In this book, through a series of 13 essays and 101 short encyclopedic entries, dozens...