The Axemaker's Gift: A Double-Edged History of Human Culture
"A detailed, original and persuasive reading of cultural and intellectual history."—Los Angeles Times. "A genuine tour de force."—San Francisco Chronicle.
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At the close of this century of creativity and discovery, humanists and scientists alike wonder: How could human beings in all their brilliance - those "axemakers" with the genius to invent, lead, inspire, heal, design - have brought the world to the brink of destruction? The answers can be found in The Axemaker's Gift, an imaginative and brilliantly informed double-edged history of human culture. James Burke, a leading expert on the interaction of technology and society, and Robert Ornstein, a pioneer in charting the evolution of consciousness, show how the interaction between innovation and the brain has continually reshaped the world and, more important, the way we think. Publishers Weekly Prolific psychologist Ornstein and historian Burke, best known for his PBS-TV series "Connections", have written an ambitious, entertaining, not always convincing survey of the interaction of technology, culture, history and the human mind. Early hominids' use of tools, they maintain, altered the brain's structure over millennia, favoring reason over emotion and fostering sequential thinking, which generated language, logic and rules. With the advent of agriculture and writing in Mesopotamia came social hierarchy. The authors strain mightily to prove that successive advances in technic - the Greek alphabet, the weight-driven clock, Gutenberg's printing press, scientific method, London's stock exchange, modern clinical medicine, computers, etc. - radically altered the structure of society, increasingly concentrating power and knowledge in the hands of a specialized ruling elite that imposed ever greater degrees of conformity on the masses. A "cut-and-control'' outlook that divides the world into manipulable units is held responsible for our present ecological crisis. The authors' proposed solution is a world of small communities with participatory democracy and "webbed education'' whereby information-technology users can access all knowledge as a dynamic whole. (Sept.)
PrologueIGetting an Edge11Getting an Edge32Token Contribution353The ABC of Logic63IICutting up the World894Faith of Power915Fit to Print1216New Worlds1457Root and Branch1758Class Act1999Doctor's Order225IIIPicking up the Pieces25110Journey's End25311Forward to the Past279Select Bibliography313Index339
\ Library JournalFrom the first stone used by prehistoric man to the electronic wonderland that currently exists in the United States, each new technology has had a double-edged effect, say the authors. The material in this abridgment ranges from very interesting to pedantic, and in the end it fits into the apocalyptic class of books that warn of the horrors being unleashed by modern man. The ironic conclusion is that our salvation can be brought about by a "web" of computers, which can bring electronic learning to all people. Coauthor Burke, who hosts the PBS series Connections, also serves as reader. Not a necessary purchase.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Technological Univ., Russellville\ \
