The Book Is Really Out

Today was an interesting day. One of many to come in the next month, I bet.

I titled the last post "The Book Is Out" but today feels like the first day where it's really been out. I had a great time with Ira at Science Friday: excellent questions, and fun to talk about the book to such a vast, science-smart audience....

Then tonight I got sent a link -- via Google Alerts -- to the Times review running tomorrow. It pokes some fun at my propensity for making connections -- I get dinged for having an "overintellectualized imagination" -- but then ends with a long summary of Priestley's life that says some nice things about the more traditional biographical side of the book. So as I said on Twitter, no complaints here! They took it seriously and gave it a lot of ink. You can't ask for more.

Ever since I finished the first half the book, I've said that the criticisms of the book are going to come from readers who don't want to be distracted from the main story -- for understandable reasons. (It's a great story, even without me messing with it.) The ratio of connections-to-plot was a big discussion at the kitchen cabinet edit meetings with my wife, in fact. I like history books with more traditional narratives too, but for whatever reason, I'm less interested in writing them.

So the real question for me is whether there's something useful in the "long zoom" frame that resonates with readers. Thus far, it seems like most readers genuinely enjoy the approach, at least from the first few reviews in the traditional press and on Amazon. But Peter Merholz--whose has always been a close, if critical, reader of my stuff--came to a similar conclusion in his post earlier this week. So the jury is out.

And since the jury is out, let me make one small defense. Barry Gewen's piece in the Times gives this summary of one of my threads in Invention:

Oxygen molecules were a key subject of Priestley’s researches. They are connected to photosynthesis, Mr. Johnson points out, which is connected to England’s coal deposits, which are connected to the rise of industrialization, which is connected to the French and American Revolutions, which are connected to present-day global warming.

That does indeed sound like classic Six Degrees of Separation, as Gewen suggests in the opening paragraph. But only when you phrase it that way. The power and humor of the Kevin Bacon game is that you can get to improbably distant cousins through a few short steps on the network. There's no useful connection between Kevin Bacon and Buster Keaton, but according to the Oracle of Bacon, they are only separated by two degrees:

Buster Keaton  has a Bacon number of 2.

Buster Keaton
was in
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The (1960)
with
Patty McCormack
was in
Frost/Nixon (2008)
with
Kevin Bacon

Gewen makes it sound like I'm up to a comparable game in his Invention review, which, translated into Kevin-Bacon-language would look something like this:

Joseph Priestley
was in
Oxygen Molecules
with
Photosynthesis
which was in 
England's Coal Deposits
with
Industrialization
which was in
The English and French Revolutions
with
Present Day Global Warming

That does sound annoying! But fortunately, that's not what the book actually argues. Priestley is connected directly to each step in the network: to oxygen, photosynthesis (which he did pioneering work on), the Coal Deposits and Industrialization (which he lived off of, and helped both create and explain), the English and French Revolutions (both of which he supported as vocally as any subject of the British Crown, support that ultimately had him run out of England by an angry mob). And his breakthroughs in atmospheric chemistry ultimately helped us understand present-day global warming.

Translated into Kevin Bacon-speak, Priestley was in all of the movies. That's what makes him so interesting.

Actually, the one leap on the chain that Gewen gets flat-out wrong is the last, which should by rights be the most tenuous one: Priestley had immense connections to the American and French Revolutions and to the science of global warming. But there is no connection that I know of -- nor any that I wrote about in the book -- that links global warming directly to the political revolutions of the late 18th-century.

Comments

[peterme]

To clarify, I have no issue with using the Long Zoom frame. It's apparent that the Long Zoom is the driving force of the book -- so without it, you wouldn't have anything.

But I think what happened, with an approach so systems-oriented, is that you lost the more emotional/visceral connection to Priestley. I think in your understandable desire to move away from a "Great Man" narrative, and your explanations of all the influences that enabled Priestley's genius to fluorish, you sacrificed some of the story's heart. Biographies succeed when they allow readers to understand larger historical movements/moments in the context of a relatable individual. THE GHOST MAP worked because you provided such heart for Snow and Whitehead.

[peterme]

Separately, I was speaking to my wife (an historical archaeologist) about your Long Zoom thesis. And she wondered how familiar you were with Braudel's concept of the "longue durée" which is very similar to The Long Zoom -- looking at history at multiple levels, and not being so focused on The Event.

[Steven Johnson]

Thanks for the clarification, Peter. That's interesting what you say about Priestley as a character. You're the only one so far who has voiced that criticism -- I feel like there's a lot more about him that you neglected to mention in your review, in part because the surviving letters give so much personality. There is far more about him as an individual than there was about Snow or Whitehead in Ghost Map. But certainly, if I'd written a longer book there would have been more room to develop him as a relatable individual...

As for Braudel, yes, big influence. I actually use the phrase long duree in Invention at some point. I read him a lot when I was in grad school, and he also figures prominently in De Landa's 10,000 years book, which had a huge impact on my approach. In a way, I would describe the long zoom approach as a kind of fusion of Braudel, consilience, and the Long Now Brand/Eno vision...

One difference with Braudel is that I don't believe that he ever really reached over into the sciences the way I've tried to do -- that's the consilience influence, I suppose. So it's not about the Event or the Great Man with Braudel, but it's also not about the impact of the Carboniferous on industrialization. Nor is it about the impact of dopamine on cultural complexity the way I described it in Everything Bad.

Speaking of which, you should read the second half of Everything Bad -- it's the section where I try to describe *why* the culture is getting more complex, not just making the case that it is getting more complex. For all the press that book got, almost no one dealt with the second half, which was actually, in my opinion, the more interesting argument. (And it's also the first place where I start talking about this approach in some detail.) I'm sure you can find a second-hand reviewer's copy somewhere to ensure I don't see a cent from it. :)

[Simon Goldie]

I think the long zoom approach works very well. It gives texture and context and makes a point about Priestley and how we should look at history. I see the book as part of a body of work that explores networks, science, how we organise ourselves and how we live.

I have posted a review of it on my blog if anyone cares to read it - just click on my name.

[Steven Johnson]

Simon, thanks so much for that review. Your description sounds exactly like the book I was trying to write. I'm glad it resonated with you...

[normd]

Connections are fine. The long zoom is fine. I think it is hard to write a book that is biographical but not actually a biography; the risk is that readers will want a hero-fest.

Since I have yet to finish Invention, I will wait to comment further. Other than to confess that I have yet to be annoyed :)