The history of knowledge

Knowledge makes humble. Ignorance makes proud.

Confucius

Books are depositories of knowledge. Now Simon Winchester has written a book about knowledge itself, Knowing What We Know (2023).

How is knowledge gathered? How is it used? How is it conveyed to others? How is it stored? Winchester tackles all such questions and in so doing discusses everything from oral traditions to schools to the invention of moveable type to the Encyclopedia Brittanica to Wikipedia and Google. He writes about libraries and newspapers and universities, as well as about many great individuals  down through the ages from all parts of the world, from Asia to Africa to Europe to America, who have advanced the cause of knowledge.

Yet knowledge has a dark side, and Winchester does not ignore it, devoting a few pages to propaganda, which either creates fake knowledge or emphasizes one side of a question while downplaying the other. In other words, he writes about such things as politics and advertising. Unfortunately Winchester sometimes turns political himself and tosses in his own propaganda.

The most disturbing part of his book comes near the end when he wonders if knowledge may be becoming obsolete. Because of calculators, we no longer need to know even basic math. Because we have GPS. we no longer need to know much about geography. In which direction does the sun set? We no longer need to know even that. Because of Wikipedia and Google and Siri, we no longer need to know much of anything. What does this mean for the future of mankind?

Winchester packs so much into this book that it seems hard to believe that it comes in under 400 pages.