Innovations That Made the Modern World

How We Got to Now is a series of eccentric success stories. Steven Johnson charts the innovations and inventions that shaped how we live today in an unconventional and, surprisingly, novel manner. His thesis, that a nexus of technological and intellectual conditions made famous innovations possible, is a sophisticated and challenging idea he applies to inventions, such as the lightbulb, with a persuasive tone. The result is a stimulating, highly-readable synthesis of human history’s most important breakthroughs with its own independent series of ideas to share.  

First, Johnson argues that collaboration is key to understanding the genesis of innovative ideas. He affirms that the ‘“genius” theory of innovation – [i.e.] the single inventor inventing a single thing, in a moment of sudden inspiration’ is a cultivated myth (p. 169). Rather, we should favour a ‘network/systems’ model of innovation that recognises that big ideas usually ‘coalesce out of smaller, incremental breakthroughs’ (p. 180). 

For instance, Thomas Edison introduced the lightbulb to wider society, but he never invented the first lightbulb which preceded his experiments by about forty years. John Gorrie invented a refrigerator in the late nineteenth-century yet died penniless without recognition. Others continued work and, eventually, brought modern refrigerator units to the public in the mid-1950s. As such, ‘multiple invention’ occurred. Thus, these innovations resist attribution to one single individual of insurmountable ‘genius’.

Second, inventions came about through a so-called ‘hummingbird’ effect. Johnson explains that this effect is the ‘strange chains of influence’ which make an innovation plausible: ‘An innovation, or cluster of innovations, in one field ends up triggering changes that seem to belong to a different domain altogether’ (p. 6).  Johnson eloquently puts this idea into practice in the book’s first chapter. He discusses how the invention of the Guttenberg press in the 1440s altered reading habits and ‘made a massive number of people aware for the first time that they were farsighted’ (p. 19). Therefore the innovation of the printing press gave way to the innovation of spectacles, which then led to a cluster of innovations found in microscopes, telescopes, fibre optics and, finally, the internet. 

Another illustration of Johnson’s point can be found in how glass innovations helped create mirrors in early modern Europe, paving the way to new forms of thinking such as self-reflection and heightened self-consciousness. Johnson claims the cultural output of the time exposes these modes of thought, such as Velázquez’s Las Meninas (which shows the perspective of the painter's subject, King Philip IV of Spain) and Descartes' radical philosophy. 

Johnson’s arguments are engaging. Yet, sometimes, he seems to overstep the mark. His points are highly logical, but only if we choose to view the history of inventions from a certain perspective.

Las Meninas, oil on canvas. 1656. © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Johnson points towards the utility of a ‘long-zoom’ approach to the past. Rather than focus on individuals, historians should focus on structures and conditions, showing ‘that social transformations are not always the direct result of human agency and decision-making’ (p. 7). Through mapping the links between seemingly unrelated scientific phenomena, we will find that everything ‘is connected on some level’ (p. 6). 

As convincing as this sounds, it seems that Johnson is far too hostile towards arguments which favour agency. In some way, Johnson’s argument is naïve – overall, human beings formulate and create the very inventions so central to his book's discussion. Perhaps Johnson should have rephrased his argument, for it is certainly clear that historical conditions favour the making of innovations, but are ultimately the result of human thoughts and actions.

This is a well written and highly enjoyable book. Aimed at a wide readership, Johnson respects the intelligence of his readers and offers sophisticated points throughout, made greater by his clear skill for storytelling.

Source:

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World. By Steven Johnson. Pp x + 244 incl. 41 illustrations. London: Penguin Random House, 2014. £9.99. ISBN 978-1-846-14855-2.