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James Gleick鈥檚 The Information: A history, a theory, a flood is a biography of information that puts today鈥檚 revolution in some much-needed context

FOR most of history, messages were things: clay tablets, scrolls, scraps of paper, even glyphs tattooed on to the head of a slave, which were revealed only when he visited the message receiver鈥檚 barber. But over time, and especially during the 20th century, mathematicians, engineers and inventors slowly began to divorce the content of a message from its physical vehicle, and in doing so changed how humans used and understood information.

Most importantly, these thinkers refined the very definition of information, purifying the concept just as earlier generations of scientists had purified the meaning of 鈥渕ass鈥� and 鈥渆nergy鈥�. But whereas the crisp new definitions of mass and energy restricted the words鈥� use to technical contexts, information鈥檚 new definition, one based on bits and entropy (I = -鈭�p_i log₂ p_i, to be precise) widened its applicability. Information theory soon colonised economics, genetics, thermodynamics and other fields. Today some physicists even argue that information is more fundamental than both mass and energy 鈥� that it may be the very bedrock of reality.

The long emergence and eventual triumph of information and information theory is the subject of James Gleick鈥檚 aptly subtitled The Information: A history, a theory, a flood. It is a vast account of information鈥檚 history, beginning with long-distance drumming in Africa 鈥� a network of drums that could send messages hundreds of miles 鈥� and ending with Wikipedia. It notes some dizzying technological jumps. For example, those long-distance drummers switched to using cellphones within one generation.

Gleick really geeks out in places 鈥� you don鈥檛 often hear a logarithm described, ecstatically, as 鈥渁n electric flashlight sent into a lightless world鈥�. His enthusiasm is contagious, but at times his excitement results in text that is a little dense.

Overall, however, the book concentrates on the personalities in the history of information technology 鈥� people like Charles Babbage, who invented the first computer; Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, who was Lord Byron鈥檚 daughter and Babbage鈥檚 colleague; and Claude Shannon, who finally defined information precisely and in doing so ushered in modern communications.

It is fitting that people dominate Gleick鈥檚 history, because many early long-distance communication systems were designed to look human, such as the wooden trunks with movable 鈥渁rms鈥� controlled by ropes that sent primitive semaphore across the mountains and rooftops of Napoleon-era France. This anthropomorphism encouraged people to compare communication systems to human nervous systems. It seems that we need to relate to technologies in a human way, and aren鈥檛 wired to view information abstractly. Indeed it is striking how often writers and historians have recycled this clich茅 with every new advance. Including, of course, the internet.

Entertaining, funny and clever, The Information puts our modern 鈥渋nformation revolution鈥� in context, helping us appreciate the many information revolutions that preceded and enabled it. The internet certainly has changed things, but Gleick shows that it has changed only what has already changed many times before.