This was an entertaining and informative read. I found myself sharing what I learned from this book with those around me. I recommend it to fans of good and highly readable non-fiction.

KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW offers perspective on knowledge and its acquisition from a well-known, best-selling author, Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman). Winchester begins with a discussion of what is knowledge ("justified true belief") and looks at how it has been created, organized, stored, and disseminated over time. In his exploration, he ranges from ancient times (referencing Plato, Socrates, and others) to "Modern Magic" and asks some rather profound questions for today: "If all knowledge, if the sum of all thought, is to be made available at the touch on a plate of glass, then what does that portend?" or "If machines will acquire all our knowledge for us and do our thinking for us, then what, pray, is the need for us to be?" Throughout the text numerous anecdotes are shared and an entire chapter is devoted to teaching children while other sections deal with topics such as libraries, culture, the printed word, journalism, and engineering. In addition, there is a several page Bibliography, listing books which Winchester consulted and/or recommends for further reading. The tone throughout is somewhat dry and scholarly, although KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW received a starred review from Booklist. For those who are interested, here are links to reviews in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Winchester's latest tome addresses how humans learn, process, and disseminate knowledge. He highlights intellectual luminaries throughout history, and wonders whether modern technology obviates the need for people to be intelligent, or to have facts, such as basic mathematical computations, at ready recall. When people rely so heavily on electronic access to information, how will this affect society?
My husband and I took great enjoyment from reading this book out loud to each other. It is well researched, and offers a myriad of topics for thoughtful (wink) discussion and analysis.

I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall when the wonderful Simon Winchester told his editor, "I think I'd like my next book to be on human knowledge. All of it." I assume a flurry of questions followed, mainly asking what would that book even look like.

As expected, the book is named Knowing What We Know and it is a wonderful walk through the major people, places, and events of human history. To be clear, there are philosophical questions presented but the book is not a philosophy book. Winchester wants to ruminate on these questions by chronicling history and its major leaps in knowledge. Aristotle is in here, but so is Google. Gutenberg makes an appearance as well as the atomic bomb. The book is fun because you can feel how much fun Winchester is having writing it. As with most of his books, it feels like a conversation. I half expect each chapter to end with, "what do you think?"

This is a safe book to recommend to anyone, even those who avoid non-fiction. There is too much covered for there not to be something someone will find interesting.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Harper Books.)

Simon Winchester has the knack of tackling historical topics and making them engaging and even entertaining. "Knowing What We Know" is a wonderful addition to his bibliography. In looking at how information was recorded, stored, and shared from ancient to modern times, Winchester opens a window into how humans have used, and not used, information throughout history, including what the modern age has brought--and wrought--on human's ability to think and reason. I will happily read everything Simon Winchester writes! Highly recommend.

Simon Winchester always tackles the tough questions and this book is no different. In this journey down the road of world knowledge we begin at the first inkling of recorded knowledge in Mesopotamia and finish with today's artificial intelligence. This is not a quick journey but a rewarding one if you love to ponder ancient libraries, museums and cultures from long ago. What immense collections have been learned and saved and sadly lost. He also delves into what the future holds for humans who turn to machines to find, act on and store knowledge without our brains having to do much at all. This in depth look at how we learn, who we learned from and what we are in danger of losing made me think that the author would be proud of how much knowledge he has passed on with his books. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

Tracking the history of knowledge is certainly an interesting endeavor; for much of human history, written knowledge is all we have left. The rest, often information deemed to obvious to be notated, is now lost.

Still, Simon Winchester follows the history of knowledge from Mesopotamia to the modern day by way of discussing libraries/museums, how information was written and dispersed to the public, what exactly people did with that knowledge and how people or governments skewed things to their benefits, and last but not least: computers.

I enjoyed reading this book and would heartily recommend it to anyone interested in diving into the history of knowledge. Hopefully we'll all become a litter wiser for it.