Once upon a time Gershom Scholem, historian nonpareil who may have known Kabbalah better than perhaps anyone ever alive the same time he was was introduced by a peer with the following witty remark: “nonsense is nonsense but the history of nonsense is a very important science”.
Can what is said about at least one form of Jewish mysticism apply to knowledge as a whole? Or conversely: is it enough just to know things, but is it overkill to delve into the history of knowing why we know things? One journalist, Simon Winchester, who has spent a storied career writing and covering most everything takes a step back and goes meta in order to provide a very readable survey on the history of…knowledge.
There is a lot that Knowing What We Know covers and you’d think a book that essentially is the history of encyclopedias (actually, that does appear, but only in chapter two) would be about that long. We’re lucky in that regard because Winchester expertly jumps from topic to topic without overstaying its welcome. From learning about the most obvious history of knowledge: teaching children before moving along further and further zooming out until we hit libraries (and their history too of course!), the internet, and at the end, AI, a lot has time to shine.
In particular, the pleasant pit-stop describing what I can only describe as the ‘calculated madness’ of the London Library organized in such a way the only way to truly discover great reads seems to be what one historical figure has called—and now I borrow it with glee– “serendipitous browsing”. In a way, the entirety of Knowing What We Know is serendipitous. With a weaker pen and less experience, this book could have been a hot mess. Here, the pitfalls of attempting to cover too much too quickly never appear. This one’s fun, informative, and leaves you wanting more, as any good book on history should.
While ‘knowledge’ can (and should!) go hand-in-hand with “enlightenment”, Knowing What We Know does not only cover the positive uses of knowledge dispersal in all its lovely forms. Because for all the endless forms most beautiful of learning via the book, the hyperlink, and the spoken word, each can—and as the book shows later on—be used for means most nefarious: propaganda, purposeful omission, the rewriting of history, subliminal messaging, and outright prohibition. Knowing is important, but it can also be dangerous for those clinging to power. Winchester focuses on one incident in particular in China in the late 80’s that probably was less about fashion than pushing for democratic norms. Nowadays, access there to information about it is muted, changed, or simply forbidden.
But not everything near the end is fraught. Some is muted. The power rests in the hands of the wielder. The light wisely steps back from authoritarian abuses of information and migrates to potentially the biggest misuse of knowledge of all: laziness from convenience. The abacus vs the calculator: the former, a mind enhancer that can help optimize calculations though still requiring the user to do the work and the latter, where mindlessly and effortlessly plugging in numbers is all that is needed per human input. Does having endless numbers of libraries at our fingertips mean we’re making the best use of them? The transmission of knowledge, Winchester notes throughout the book, has advanced, but are we using it wisely? To learn by reading an eBook while brushing one’s teeth or rather by using the same device to doomscroll down a social media feed? Which is the best use of one’s time?
While the end may not be fraught, the literal end—the final chapter, “The First and Wisest of Them All” may have a catchy name, but seems more of spending a few dozen pages providing brief character sketches of…well, really smart people. If the book was cut a bit shorter and simply concluded with the previous chapter focusing on how modern technology has made access to knowledge both incredibly simple yet with simplicity comes a lack of desire to absorb it, it would have provided a better message to the curious reader to remain on the path of reading rather than other less fruitful pursuits.
3.5/5
by kobushi