Analogia

Analogia

The Entangled Destinies of Nature, Human Beings and Machines

Summary

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020

How did we end up in a world where humans coexist with technologies we can no longer fully control or understand?

George Dyson plots an unexpected course through the past 300 years to reveal the hidden connections that underpin our digital age, ending with a premonition of what lies ahead.

From an eighteenth-century Russian voyage across the North Pacific, to the mirror signals that heralded the age of digital telecommunications and the invention of the vacuum tube, Analogia interweaves historical adventure with scientific insight in a deeply personal story that frames the pursuit - and cost - of the digital revolution in a captivating new light.

Reviews

  • This book pierces through the fog of everyday life. Read and you will become aware of history you need to know, and of how the last few centuries of the human story sit within a much larger, epochal frame. An extra treat is insight into the remarkable Dyson family
    Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

About the author

George Dyson

George Dyson is a historian of technology and the author of several books including Turing's Cathedral, Project Orion and Darwin Among the Machines. His subjects range from the development (and redevelopment) of the Aleut kayak to the evolution of artificial intelligence.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more