The creation of the Web may well be the most important technological invention since Guttenberg's printing press. If that were all, it would be a very big deal indeed. However, as David Weinberger argues in this book, the Web is something even more than that. For everyone on the planet who has a computer, or access to a computer, the Web provides access to an extra, borderless public world created and sustained by the millions of people who use it. This extra world is something unique in the history of mankind. It has no geography to hold us together, no land beneath us, no planet spinning us, no sky beckoning us. All that holds this world together is our common interest. Matter and geography drops out and we are left with only ourselves. This title presents a thorough exploration of the profound impact this revolution is having on our most fundamental assumptions about what constitutes such basic concepts as space, time, self, knowledge, matter and togetherness. While the experience of the Web alters these traditional concepts in profound ways, the great irony, according to Weinberger, is that this experience is actually more in tune with our essential selves than the modern world we have constructed. The web is changing us all, precisely because it appeals to what is most essentially, authentically human: our need to connect. Peopled with colourful, provocative participants in this extra world, "Small Pieces Loosely Joined" is an ultimately hopeful book that aims to make us look at the web - and at life - in an entirely new way.
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"Provocative and disturbing...compelling and cogent...An important book."
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By M. D. Beaney
Format:Paperback
I found this to be a very thought-provoking book. It's split into chapters intended to illustrate different facets of how our relationship to the web is subtly different to our experience of the "real world": concepts of space, time, knowledge etc.
All this stuff is quite interesting, but I found that the book really kicked-in mid way through, in the chapter on "perfection". Weinberger's view that the web's imperfection, like our own, is what makes it so enjoyable really struck a chord. Indeed, there were several other instances in the book where I felt I was being shown a different perspective on something I had previously viewed as common sense - in itself, I think this is a good enough reason to recommend the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3.0 out of 5 stars
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Waffles between erudite and pedestrian
6 Dec 2004
By Robert Pratte
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This really is an odd book. The best way that I can describe it is like Tom Wolfe revising a manuscript of which portions were written by Marshall McLuhan and others by Ray Kurzweil. The author, David Weinberger, brings his broad knowledge and reading into play: Descartes, Gaston Bachelard, John Searle, history, philosophy, etc. Likewise, he includes and interweaves technical information and figures such as Bob Metcalfe, one of the inventors of ethernet. Weinberger does an excellent job of showing connections between various small pieces of information, thus forming an analogy to the web within his explanation of it.
Yet, much of the book seems frivolous and pedestrian, so that it seems that a volume half the size would have conveyed the same information in a more satisfying, meatier meal. Overall, I think that the book is interesting, and contains several good ideas, but find the writing, while clear, a bit too slow moving. Moreover, there is a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to the way that Weinberger blends technical information with personal experience, leaving a feeling of disjuncture in the work.
If you are looking for new ways to approach the web, then this book will fall short. However, if you enjoy humanist responses to technology, found Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines interesting, and perhaps are a fan of Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, then Small Pieces should provide interesting, additional insight as well as a pleasant afternoon read.
Yet, much of the book seems frivolous and pedestrian, so that it seems that a volume half the size would have conveyed the same information in a more satisfying, meatier meal. Overall, I think that the book is interesting, and contains several good ideas, but find the writing, while clear, a bit too slow moving. Moreover, there is a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to the way that Weinberger blends technical information with personal experience, leaving a feeling of disjuncture in the work.
If you are looking for new ways to approach the web, then this book will fall short. However, if you enjoy humanist responses to technology, found Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines interesting, and perhaps are a fan of Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, then Small Pieces should provide interesting, additional insight as well as a pleasant afternoon read.
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