New Renaissance (The): Computers and the Next Level of Civilization
By, Robertson, Douglas S.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Class No.: 303.4834 ROB
Accession No.: 005922
Year: 1998
Pages: 200p.

Of the week: 17th July. to 23rd July., 2006

In The New Renaissance, Robertson offers an important historical perspective on the computer revolution, by comparing it to three earlier landmarks of human development-language, writing, and printing. We see how these three inventions changed how we capture, store, and distribute information, and how each thereby triggered an information explosion that transformed society, ushering in a new civilization utterly unlike anything before. But history has never seen a revolution on the scale of the one being sparked by computers today. What can we expect from the most important technological breakthrough in human history?

Robertson lays out possible scenarios regarding transformations in science and mathematics, education, language, the arts, and everyday life. School children, for instance, will forsake pencil and paper for keyboard and calculator, much as their forebears forsook clay tablets and abaci for pencil and paper. In films, the computer simulations of Jurassic Park could be eclipsed by "synthespians," artificial actors indistinguishable from living ones.

Whether one is a computer enthusiast, a popular science buff, or simply someone fascinated by the future, The New Renaissance provides a breathtaking peek at the magnitude of changes we can expect as the full power of computers is unleashed.