The book provides a comprehensive examination of Britain's evolving relationship with continental Europe, highlighting the nation's divided stance on European integration from the postwar era to today. By employing a clear, chronological narrative, the authors integrate economic, financial, commercial, and political dimensions, utilizing newly-released materials from the Macmillan and Heath periods. This accessible account is designed for a multidisciplinary audience, shedding light on the complex postwar history shared by Britain and Europe.
Informatica--the updated edition of Alex Wright's previously published Glut--continues the journey through the history of the information age to show how information systems emerge. Today's "information explosion" may seem like a modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation--nor even the first species--to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Christian monasteries. Wright weaves a narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. He suggests that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past. We stand at a precipice struggling to cope with a tsunami of data. Wright provides some much-needed historical perspective. We can understand the predicament of information overload not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.
