Welcome to my blog about history, technology and progress!
First, some background about me. I am a former academic. I was a History major at UC Berkeley, and then I received a PhD in Political Science & Public Policy at Brown University. After a brief career as a professor, I shifted to a “real job.” I have worked over 20 years in the Digital Technology industry, first as a Technical Writer and then as a User Experience Designer. My unusual background has left me with a unique perspective on history and technology.
About five years ago, I decided to focus my scant free-time reading about technology and innovation. I was particularly interested in determining which government policies and corporate business models could foster innovation.
At first, I focused narrowly on recent innovations – computers, the Internet, and mobile devices. I read many books about technology, innovation and business practices. Some were useful; many were little more than corporate fads. The more useful books, however, focussed on topics seemingly unrelated to technological innovation.
I gradually expanded my reading to include new topics: history, biology, paleontology, anthropology, sociology, economics, culture, geography, psychology, brain science, network theory, complexity theory, engineering, urban studies, and philosophy. I began to see connections between technology and innovation and those other fields.
Most of my time has been spent reading books/articles and taking notes about each of them. Some of these books inspired me to write a few pages of content related to the topic. Over time, I have developed a huge collection of notes that are gradually coalescing into a new perspective on history, technology and progress; one that might be of interest to others.
I decided to publish my notes, one-blog-post-at-a-time, so that ideas bubbling around in my brain will become more focused and explainable. My hope is that all of these notes ultimately coalesce into a book, but for now a blog seems like the best medium for sharing. The content will focus on the following themes:
- History
- Progress
- Technology
- Biology
- Geography
- Skills
- Social Organizations
- Values & Culture
I suggest that you start by reading the following posts:
I will try to post at least once-per-week and, hopefully, often more frequently.
I hope that you enjoy!
