Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

"A house of wonders itself. . . . Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d'ya-knows" —The New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times-bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From, a look at the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained.

This lushly illustrated history of popular entertainment takes a long-zoom approach, contending that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Steven Johnson argues that, throughout history, the cutting edge of innovation lies wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused.

Johnson's storytelling is just as delightful as the inventions he describes, full of surprising stops along the journey from simple concepts to complex modern systems. He introduces us to the colorful innovators of leisure: the explorers, proprietors, showmen, and artists who changed the trajectory of history with their luxurious wares, exotic meals, taverns, gambling tables, and magic shows.

In Wonderland, Johnson compellingly argues that observers of technological and social trends should be looking for clues in novel amusements. You'll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science, Technology, Audiobook, Psychology, Business

336 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2016

About the author

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of twelve books, including Enemy of All Mankind, Farsighted, Wonderland, How We Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You.
He's the host of the podcast American Innovations, and the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. Johnson lives in Marin County, California, and Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons.

Reviews

[Mircea Petcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revolutia Industriala este vazuta de regula ca rezultanta unor forte precum inovatia tehnologica, crearea de noi institutii financiare si piete. Steven Johnson scoate in evidenta rolul jucat de moda si placere.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Johnson is one of my favorite authors (I even wrote this article making suggestions on where to start if you've never read him).

Wonderland is very similar to Johnson's previous book, How We Got to Now, which examined six innovations, clean, time, glass, light, cold, and sound that revolutionized the world. Wonderland takes a similar tact, this time examining how six amusements-fashion, music, taste, illusions, games, and public spaces-have had similar results. For example, the early fashion industry's desire for cotton was a precipitating cause of the slave trade, and people gathering in pubs led to many democratic revolutions.

Perhaps the most interesting anecdote for me was the description of Charles Darwin visiting a London Zoo. I've always thought Darwin's ideas arose primarily as a result of his voyages on the HMS Beagle, but it's clear this visit to the zoo was important as well. In fact there are several instances of famous scientists and innovators becoming entranced with a play thing early in their lives which subsequently inspired their work (e.g., Charles Babbage).

Another key point in the later chapters is relevant to autonomous systems designers. A key for humans learning, Johnson hypothesizes, is surprise. We love novelty because are brains are rewarded when we are surprised, and this surprise is the basis of all learning. In order to truly learn, autonomous systems must also have this capability of being able to be surprised.

[Gretchen Rubin]

An interesting exploration of how the human desire for play shapes culture. I've been thinking a lot about this, in relation to the senses. The things we've done for black pepper.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Wonderland" segue a fórmula criada por Steven Johnson nos seus livros anteriores, nomeadamente os mais recentes, dedicados ao historiar da ciência e criatividade — "The Invention of Air" (2008), "Where Good Ideas Come From" (2010) ou "How We Got to Now" (2014). Se retira o encanto de se ser surpreendido, não deixa de funcionar bem, as competências de Johnson enquanto contador de histórias são de grande excelência, ao que se acrescenta a quantidade de investigação e trabalho que coloca na feitura de cada livro que nos permite retirar muito da sua leitura. Neste novo livro Johnson deteve-se à volta de uma componente da atividade humana — o brincar — que continua a ser olhada como menor, procurando compreender o que nos conduz para essa atividade a partir de uma análise substancialmente rica sobre eventos imensamente relevantes da nossa história que não teriam acontecido sem a nossa vontade, desejo ou necessidade de brincar.

Ler a análise completa no VI em: https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/...

[Joseph Brigante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me be very clear. My rating reflects my preference, not the quality of the book. This book has taught me about myself in that I am very interested in play as applies to games and gaming.

I will say I feel the use of the word "play" in the title is used extremely loosely. I personally do not consider a taste for spices to be "play." This is more an exploration of how the seeking of pleasure/novelty, not the push to have more of the necessities, drives much of innovation and exploration. The thesis does appear sound, it just wasn't what I expected or wanted.

There is plenty of fascinating information in here. It is definitely worth a read for lots of people. But just go into it thinking it will be about finding/making wonderful things, not play.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more. At times it was very interesting and at others it seemed Johnson was working very hard to connect his topics back to the original concept of the book and it made the reading very tedious. There were some very clear instances of innovation born from the human desire for entertainment, but the majority of the connections felt forced and almost shoehorned in to make a point. I learned a few interesting things, so it wasn't a waste. I was just so excited about the book that it was a let down in the end.

[Daniel Afloarei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hai sa nu mai fugim de latura noastra ludica si sa o lasam sa ne indrume catre revelatii.

Restul recenziei aici:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjdh...

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderland : How Play Made the Modern World (2016) by Steven Johnson is an interesting read about the impact of how luxuries and amusements have had on history. Johnson wrote a superb book called 'How we got to now' that had a limited number of key inventions that he says lead to the modern world. Wonderland is similarly constructed.

The book looks at shopping, music, taste, illusion, games and public space. The chapter on shopping looks at how the development of shopping fed growth. When looking at music the fact that humans like music and the importance of automatic players is described. Taste concentrates on the importance of the spice trade. Illusion looks at spiritual shows and finally Disney. Games looks at Chess and early computer games. Public space describes pubs and other public spaces.

Johnson is a fine writer and a lot of the information in the book is fascinating. His descriptions of the mechanical works of Iranian engineers is amazing. However, the book is undermined in that the main thesis running through it is oversold. The book is worth reading for a well written and interesting diversion though.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting series of essays, and reminded me fondly of James Burke's Connections. More about seeking novelty than "play", it was nonetheless an enjoyable work - I like it.

I loved the writing style, especially in combination with the subject material. Very intelligent, and makes connections others have missed, providing more than enough information. And yet...

It took me a few weeks to read this, and this with a few weeks of travel and no other commitments. I found my mind wandering, and not just because of the time zones flying by under the wings. It felt at times as if the author had more enthusiasm than I did for a particular subject, and the writing wasn't pulling me in.

I'd like to read more from this Steven Johnson fellow, to be sure. I see in Google there are podcasts and an NPR essay related to this book. Maybe in the end a reread will end up with a higher rating, but for me and this situation, 3 out of 5 stars is the best I can do.

[Kin · Rating 4 out of 5]

เขียนเก่ง เกร็ดเยอะ แปลดี อ่านสนุก แต่ละบทมันอาจจะดูไม่ได้สอดคล้องกับชื่อเรื่องขนาดนั้น อาจจะเรียกได้ว่าเป็นประวัติศาสตร์โลกผ่านเรื่องที่ "ดูไม่เป็นเรื่อง" มากกว่า

[Jovi Ene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vă dați seama că multe dintre invențiile și realizările umane din ultimele secole sau milenii au pornit din joacă sau din pură întâmplare?
Ei bine, dacă nu, veți afla acest lucru din această carte dinamică, ce explică în mai multe capitole (Modă și cumpărături, Muzică, Gustul, Iluzia, Jocuri, Spațiul public) modul în care lumea modernă s-a inventat. Nenumărate exemple interesante: jocul de șah sau Monopoly, magazinele cu vitrine, mall-ul, cârciuma, cafeneaua, polițele de asigurare, roboții, cauciucul, mirodeniile etc.
O carte foarte instructivă, care ne induce ideea că știința nu-i așa de complicată pe cât credem.

[Florin Pitea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and informative. Highly recommended.

[Irina Subredu · Rating 4 out of 5]

o carte de aproape 5. not an easy read. dar îți deschide larg fereastra spre o înțelegere diferită a felului în care am ajuns aici, unde suntem acum.

[Thammalux Chaopanon · Rating 3 out of 5]

ให้มุมมองของการมองประวัติศาสตรืที่เกิดขึ้นผ่านช่องทางต่างๆ ให้เห็นว่ายังมีมิติอื่นๆที่น่าสนใจและอาจเกี่ยวข้องแบบไม่ตรงไปตรงมา

แต่ที่พยายามเชื่อมโยงการละเล่นกับการเปลี่ยนแปลงของโลกที่เกิดขึ้น ตามความเห็นก็คงไม่ได้เชื่อมโยงกันในแบบที่หนังสือนำเสนอ ดูจะห่างกันจนไม่น่าจะเป็นการเปลี่ยนแปลงที่เกิดจากการละเล่นตามที่นำเสนอครับ

แต่ถ้าเป็นในเรื่องสถานที่ส่วนกลางนำเสนอได้ดี เป็นสิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นจริง

[Zulfiya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about the book. First off, let's start with positive ones.
1. The concept is truly fascinating - the author attempts to explore how hobbies, fun, and entertainment changed the world in the most unusual and beneficial world.
2. The writing is light, intelligent, and most time quite approachable.

Alas, the book also has earned some minors miffs as well.
1. Sometimes the author was so much enthused about the topic that I found the book meandering and off topic. It might be just me because I was listening to the book during my commutes, but I truly found some passages quite entertaining but so off the mark.
2. Occasionally the book did not flow or some parts had better flow than others. Yet again, it might be the reader's fault as I found some passages more appealing than others.

Overall, I still think that I enjoyed the book for the most part, and it does deserve " liked it" rating.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating book! I'm not usually a non-fiction reader, and while at first, I found the introduction and first part dense, I gradually acclimated to Johnson's more academic writing style, and I feel as if I gleaned a lot from this book.
It was great to see a new perspective on innovation and what newness and ingenuity are fuelled by, and the ripple effect of innovations that we may otherwise see as mundane. It was great how Johnson intersected with and compounded ideas within the history of science, like the great man theory.

[Suwitcha Chandhorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

ว่าด้วยประวัติศาสตร์ของเรื่องเล่น ที่กลับกลายเป็นปัจจัยสำคัญซึ่งผลักดันให้โลกเรานี้เปลี่ยนแปลงไป ในเล่มมีเรื่องสนุก ๆ มากมายและสำนวนก็ไหลไปเรื่อย ๆ ตั้งแต่ต้นจนจบ อ่านเพลินดี ใครจะว่าผู้แต่งโยงเก่ง เราก็เห็นด้วยนะ แต่ในแง่การทำการบ้านเพื่อประกอบร่างเนื้อหาให้น่าเชื่อถือ เราก็ควรให้เครดิตเขา (ดูได้จาก references อันยาวยืด) เป็นอีกเล่มที่ชอบมาก :)

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed Steven Johnson’s other books, so it’s no surprise that this one delivered as well. He weaves together historical threads that you wouldn’t think fit together and yet they do. I was fascinated from beginning to end and would recommend this book to anyone who wants a historical explanation for why we play the way we do.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this as my non-fiction book about technology for the Read Harder Challenge. Wasn't sure I really wanted to read a tech book, but this was so fantastic! I loved learning about how certain innovations have changed the whole course of human history.

[Mike Wenzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. It tells so many wonderful stories. It outlines how wonder, fun, novelty, and amusement have shaped and created the world we live in. If you are interested in the deeper reality of the world, history, or good stories, I highly recommend this book.

[Rachel Swisher Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging and thought-provoking cultural and technological history. Another great read from Steven Johnson.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at how not just play, but The desire for leisure and luxury as well have contributed to the shaping of many things today.

[Leslie Fitzwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utterly fascinating contemplation of how the pursuit of delight and play have helped mold the modern world. I didn't always agree with the conclusions the author drew, but I deeply appreciated the discussion.

[Jasen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable stroll through how play drove the world.

“Wonderland - How Play Made the Modern World” by Steven Johnson

“Because delightful things are valuable, they often attract commercial speculation, which funds in cultivates new technologies or markets or geographic exploration. When we look back at that process, we tend to talk about it in terms of the money in markets or the vanity of the ruling elite driving the new ideas. But the money has its own masters, and in many cases the dominant one is the human appetite for a surprise and novelty and beauty. If you dig past the archaeological layers of technological invention, profit motive, conquest, and status-seeking, you often find an unlikely straighten that lies beneath the more familiar layers: the simple pleasures of a new experience – in this case, the red and blue cones of our retina registry a strange hybrid shade almost never found in nature. Somehow the story gets cast in the retailing as a tale of heroic inventors or efficient Markets or brutal exploitation. That initial moment of delight becomes an afterthought, a footnote to the master narrative.
Nowhere is this oversight more glaring than in the story behind the greatest technological appeal of modern time: the Industrial Revolution.” P.21

“At it’s core is the question of why big changes in society happen. Are they driven exclusively by new tools and cultural practices that satisfy existential needs, like nutrition, shelter, or sexual reproduction? Or are they also driven by more mercurial appetites? And even if you limit the frame of references to the industrial revolution itself, the story of those luxury stores and the delightful patterns of calico cloth has real weight to it. It’s strongly suggest that the conventional narrative of industrialization is flawed both in terms of the sequence of events and the key participants. The great takeoff of industrialization, for instance, as inevitably been told as the work of European and North American men – heroes and villains both – building steam engines and factories and shipping networks. But those dyers tinkering with calico prints on the Coromandel coast, creating new designs for the sheer beauty of it; those English women enjoying the “agreeable amusements” of shopping on Ludgate Hill – these were all active shapers of the modern reality industrialization, as important, anyway, as the James Watts and Eli Whitneys of conventional history.” P.32-33

“We now assume, correctly or not, that every new immediate experience is rewiring our brains and some fundamental way; today’s disorders – attention deficit disorder, autism, teen violence – a regularly choked up to the sensory overload of television, or video games, or social media. We take it for granted that the brain is shaped by the built environment that surrounds it, for better or worse. That way of seeing the mind – and understanding its occasional defects – first came in a view with the unlikely criminals of the department-store disease.” P.48

“But music, like other similar forms of play, is a push: it propels you to seek out new twists.” P.73

“It was programmable.
Conceptually, this was a massive leap forward: machines designed specifically to be open-ended in their functionality, machines controlled by code and not just mechanics. A direct line of logic connects the “Instrument Which Plays by Itself” to the Turing machines that have so transformed life in the modern age. You can think of the instrument as the moment when the Manichean divide between hardware and software first opened up. An invention that itself makes invention easier, faster, more receptive to trial and error. A virtual machine.” P.76

“The standard story is that computers – and the Internet – to send for military technology, since many early computers were designed specifically to crack wartime codes or calculate rocket trajectories. But inventing a computer also required other building blocks: music boxes, automated loudest, harpsichord keyboards, player pianos. Too often we hear the old bromide the innovation and never follows the lead of the Warriors..........
....107

“Edmond’s is the story of spice in a nutshell, a story where plants and peoples from all across the globe or tossed together – sometimes in great triumph and sometimes in great tragedy – all to take the rarest of taste and turn them into commodities. A plant indigenous to Mexico and controlled by the Spanish is planted on an island in the Indian Ocean by the French, where it is first fertilized by a boy whose African ancestors have been brought to the island by French slave traders. In that seemingly trivial act – a boy tricking a flower and producing seed, in the hills of a remote island – but somehow shifted billions of dollars of economic activity from one part of the world to another, and turn a spice that was once pursued by only the elite of society into a flavor so ubiquitous that its name has become a synonym for the common place in the ordinary.” P.130

“These origins help explain why spices were considered to have such significant medicinal powers; you were consuming something that had originated outside the fallen, debauched state of civilized man.” P.138

“And here’s the amazing thing: we took that signal and turned into something enjoyable and unthreatening, something we eat for fun. Our jeans want us to be wary of compounds and activate the TRP receptors, but we are not slaves to our genes. Sometimes the patterns and conventions of human culture flow naturally out of our evolutionary heritage, as with marriage rituals, spoken languages, and incest taboos. But often the true yards stick of cultural innovation comes in measuring how far the habits and customs and appetites of culture have taken us from our genes. Like many forms of delight, the taste were spice propel this far from our roots – not just geographically but also existentially. That strange new taste on the tongue that would send any child in the house of pain could be saved by an adult, it’s pain turned into pleasure. Spices enlarged the map of possible desires, which intern enlarged the map of the world itself. This boundary pushing, this constant reimagining of what our needs an appetite should be, may not be a “thing most divine,” as Queen Elizabeth had it. But it is what makes us different from most organisms. What makes humans human is, and part, their ability to expand the boundaries of what it means to be human. The exploratory need for a new experiences, new desires, new tastes, is more often than that, the force behind that expansion. You might even call it the spice of life.” P.143-144

“But, starting in the 1910s, directors like D.W. Griffith began tinkering with a close-up, a technique that brought the spectator into a kind of intimate relationship with the actors that no stage production could achieve. That was the moment when cinema left the world of amusement and became art.” P.171

“We may not take our games as seriously as we do our forms of governance or our legal codes or our literary novels, but for some reason games have a wonderful ability to cross borders. Games were cosmopolitan mini centuries before the word entered the English vocabulary. And unlike religious or military encroachments, when games cross borders, they almost inevitably tighten the bonds between different nations rather than introducing conflict.” P.201

“Bars and pubs and taverns might have used new technologies over the centuries – from cork screws to kegs to refrigerators – but what made the drinking house so transformative had nothing to do with a contraptions it employed. The innovation, instead, it was more social and physical: the idea of a space that was both open to the public but also closed off from the street, where one could comfortably alter ones mental state for a few hours. Over the long arc of history, this innovation would prove to be as important as the more traditional breakthroughs in the cannon of good ideas: the Sexton, say, or the Pocket watch. The immediate purpose of the tavern was clear: it was an environment that made it easy for people to get drunk, and for the proprietors to make money by selling the drinks. But the hummingbird effect of the tavern turned out to be social and political: the tavern proved to be in an environment that pushed the boundaries of social relationships, encouraging experimentation and nurturing descent. The first person to hang out a shingle and serve drinks to paint customers – at some point back in the dawn of civilization – almost certainly had no idea that his or her innovation when ultimately support political and sexual revolutions that would reverberate around the world. A space originally intended for play and leisure became, and probably enough, a hot bed of dangerous new ideas.” P.244-245

“One of the defining characteristics of games – as opposed to, say, narrative – it’s precisely the fact that they turn out differently every time we play them; games are novelty machine machines. That’s what makes them fun (and sometimes addictive). All these forms of escape and amusement provided a “novelty bonus” to the brains that first experienced them.” P.282

“Think back to Charles Babbage, staring into the eyes that automated doll in Merlin‘s attic, two centuries ago. That encounter was quite literally child’s play, but the idea is in technologies that were still beneath the surface of that meeting are still transforming society as I write. Today we worry about dystopian futures where the machines become so physically dexterous that they take over our manufacturing workforce, or so intelligent that they become our masters. But perhaps, knowing the history, we have been focused on the wrong fears. Perhaps we have been wrong to worry about what will happen when the machines start thinking for themselves. What we should be really worried about is what will happen when they start to play.” P.284

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a ton from this book, which I suppose is ultimately the point of a nonfiction book. I think there was a missed opportunity to claim that Call of Duty and Roblox lobbies are the natural progression of the idea sharing environments of the taverns and coffee shops of America and Britain. They're equally as feral in my opinion.

[Tyler Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content was cool but the premise seemed flawed. Reminds me of high school papers when I'd come up with the thesis and then try to find evidence to support it, instead of vis versa

Regardless, the technologies and stories were compelling, fun and well written

[Youghourta · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب مُفيد، يُعالج موضوع "اللهو" وكيف أن اللهو كان السبب الرئيس وراء العديد من الاختراعات والتقدم العلمي والحضاري الذي نشهده الآن.
يُمكن تلخيص الكتاب في التالي: إن كانت الحاجة هي أم الاختراع كما يُقال، فإن اللهو هو أبوها، أو على الأقل أحد أقربائها. ما يهدف الكتاب إليه هو إيصال فكرة أن الكثير من الاختراعات وحتى العلوم التي نعتمد عليها الآن بشكل أساسي كانت في السّابق مُجرّد لهو ولعب، ما لبث أن تطوّر حتى أصبح أحد أساسيات الحياة.

الكتاب يتركّز حول فكرة في غاية الأهمية، وبدأ بداية قوّية جدًا، فمقدّمة الكتاب تأخذنا إلى بغداد وإلى دار الحكمة، وإلى بني موسى وخاصة كتابهم الأكثر شهرة "كتاب الحِيل" والتي يُعتبر من أوائل ما أٌلِّف في علم الميكانيكا (أو الحِيل) والذي احتوى تفاصيل بناء نحو 100 آلة ميكانيكية. إلى أن باقي الفصول لم ترقَ إلى قوة المُقدّمة ولم يُعط للفكرة كامل حقّها، رغم ذلك ستخرج -بعد الفراغ من قراءة الكتاب- بنظرة مُختلفة عن ما يُعتبر لهوًا، فلهو اليوم هو تكنولوجيا المُستقبل وربما حتى أحد ركائزه الاقتصادية.
الكتاب يعتمد نفس أسلوب كتاب "كيف وصلنا إلى هنا" والذي يستعرض تاريخ 6 مجالات (الزّجاج، التبريد، الصوت، النظافة، الوقت والزّمن)، كيف تطوّرت، كيف أثّرت الاختراعات في كل من هذه المجالات بطرق ربما لم يسبق لها أن خطرت على بالك على مجالات أخرى، وكيف تؤثّر الاختراعات بشكل سلبي أو إيجابي على مُختلف نواحي الحياة. يُمكن الاطّلاع على مُراجعتي له من هنا:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

من بين الأفكار التي استعرضها الكتاب:
- علم الإحصاءات لم يظهر للوجود إلا بعد أن اهتم مؤسّسوه بألعاب الحظ ورغبتهم في دراسة حُظوظهم في ألعاب القمار التي كانوا يُمارسونها.
- أول جهاز قابل للبرمجة لم تكن آلة تشالرز بابيج كما هو مُتعارف عليه بل هي "الآلة التي تزمّر بنفسها" التي بناها بنو موسى والتي هي عبارة عن آلة قابلة للبرمجة، وتزمّر (أي تعزف على المزمار) من تلقاء نفسها بناء على المقطوعة الموسيقية (البرنامج) التي توضع فيها.
- لعبت الموسيقى والآلات الموسيقية دورًا كبيرًا في تطوّر العديد من المجالات وظهور العديد من الاختراعات، فعلى سبيل المثال، لوحة المفاتيح التي أكتب هذه المُراجعة من خلالها لم تكن لتظهر لولا تطوير لوحات المفاتيح الخاصة بالعديد من الآلات الموسيقية
- تطور العلوم والمعارف البشرية لا يتّبع دائمًا حاجة البشر إلى تلك العلوم والمعارف، حيث يُشير الكتاب إلى وجود العديد من الآثار القديمة لآلات موسيقية (مزامير بشكل أساسي) تعود إلى حقبة سبقت ظهور العديد من الأدوات التي يحتاجها الإنسان في حياته اليومية. كما أن سكان أمريكا الأصليون توصّلوا إلى تصنيع الكرات من المطّاط، وهي الكرات التي كانت تُستخدم للهو واللعب، في حين أنهم لم يتوصّلوا إلى فكرة "العجلة" التي كانت لتفيدهم بشكل أكبر.
- العديد من الرحلات الاستكشافية القديمة لم تكن بسبب الحاجة إلى أمور أساسية أو ضرورية لحياة الإنسان، بقدر ما كانت رحلات هدفها تحصيل بعضًا مما يُعتبر ترفًا، كالحصول على القطن واللون الأرجواني (المُستخرج من نوع مُعيّن من الحلازين) أو حتى مُختلف التوابل والنُكهات.
- لعبة الحانات والمقاهي دورًا كبيرًا في تطّور النظريات والآراء السياسية الحديثة، حيث سمحت لمُختلف طبقات المجتمع بالاجتماع وتبادل الأفكار في مكان عام، كما عرفت نشوء العديد من الحركات المُجتمعية والأحزاب السياسية في هذه الأماكن المُخصّصة للهو.

الكتاب مُفيد من حيث أنه سيعطيك نظرة مُختلفة عن اللهو بشكل عام، وسيغيّر نظرتك للعديد من التقنيات التي كنت تنظر إليها على أنها مجرّد ألعاب. لم يتم ذكر ذلك في الكتاب، لكن نظرتي إلى بعض التقنيات تغيّرت بعد قراءة هذا الكتاب وخاصة ما تعلّق منها بالواقع المُعزّز و الواقع الافتراضي.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderland is a book by an author that I have enjoyed in the past so I was really looking forward to this book. And I enjoyed it, but I can't help feeling a bit misled by the subtitle and the synopsis inside the front cover. One chapter focused on toys and games, the other chapters described other non-essential activities that had an impact on other more essential inventions or discoveries. It would have been more accurate for the subtitle to be "How Our Search for Pleasure Made the Modern World." Apart from that, though, it is a fascinating book following early inventions developed long ago and tracing their evolution through history to become something essential or at least very important in the modern world.

[Stan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, although the title is misleading. Only the introduction has an in-depth analysis/discussion on how play created innovation, linking early automatons with Babbage's invention of the difference engine. The subsequent book chapters are variations on how connections can lead to various discoveries. This is similar to the old PBS show "Connections". Well worth the read, though, for anyone interested in how serendipity can play in innovation.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Those of us of a certain age who grew up in a British focused world might remember a 1970s TV show hosted by James Burke called Connections that was a history of science and technology exploring the ways ideas developed and the technology and practices that grew from and shaped those developments. I recall, while in high school, being wowed at the way he built links between seemingly random ideas, discoveries, inventions and their consequences. It taught me an enormous amount about doing history, about cultural change and about serendipity (and accident). Steven Johnson’s engaging Wonderland does a similar thing to construct a cultural history of many of the cultural practices we take for granted.

I’m impressed by his connection-building skills. In outlining this set of stories he finds associations between Phoenician sailors venturing out of the Mediterranean, past the Pillars of Hercules, to be among the first the sail the Atlantic Ocean in search of purple dye producing molluscs, display windows in late 17th century London, a shopping mall in Minnesota and the EPCOT project in Florida. It is creative, convincing and compelling, suggesting new ways to think about and understand our cultural and technological worlds. Many of the individual case and stories I knew – Heddy Lamar’s role in developing WiFi technology, séances and the commercial display of ghostly phenomena as factors influencing Freud, the Walt Disney Studio’s technological developments for Snow White and more – but I hadn’t even thought to put them together in this way to explore the development off visual technologies and our understanding of visual spectacle. Equally, the link between Meso-American rubber balls and Columbus to Lizzie Magie’s development of The Landlord Game (which became Monopoly) as a way to teach socialist political economy was not one I’d made (and that is my patch). The narrative development in each chapter is rich and informative, and as such compelling cultural history.

Despite all that, I have a problem with the claims made for the book as an investigation of ‘play’ (which, as an academic publishing in that area, irk me). ‘Play’ here is used in far too loose a way to be helpful or informative. It looks as if he is using ‘play’ to mean entertainment – many of his originary point, the places his stories begin, are about leisure, entertainment and pleasure. This is one way we might understand ‘play’, but it doesn’t necessarily get to the self-contained, immersive sense that we’d usually understand play to be – it just seems to say that it is not work, which is a weak marker. What’s more, he seems to miss the role of ‘playfulness’ in many of the inventions and developments he discusses – while regularly making the point the times of play are times of inventiveness, he doesn’t show how the inventions he discusses might also rely on a playful approach to problems and issues. That is to say, Johnson finishes up trivialising ‘play’ in a book where he trying to celebrate it: it becomes a phenomenon of fun and pleasure that leads to the serious stuff of commerce, public space and artificial intelligence. The really annoying thing is I don’t think he meant to do that.

This is an engaging and entertaining, accessible and informative piece of cultural history that I can and will use for teaching because it will take my students places that they’d never thought of and unsettle some of their taken for granted assumptions about their world. It is a really good way explore the development of ideas and practices and is a worthy addition to my James Burke driven delight in the weirdness of intellectual developments. But it is a poor book about ‘play’ because it uses the notion in a lazy way. Read, it, enjoy it, but see play differently.