Information Age Tales

About the Book

Early in recorded human history, the literacy rate was as low as one percent, and reading materials were available to only the elite. How times have changed! In Information Age Tales, author Brad Bradford chronicles these changes, documenting how technology growth continues to change the world, upsetting the balance of power on almost every continent.

Information Age Tales recaps the history of speech, languages, writing, and memory and describes how these revolutions paved the way for today’s age of cyberspace. He shows how history may be repeating itself as knowledge-sharing information technology such as Facebook and Twitter have a global effect.

Bradford presents an information technology trail that includes concepts such as the following:

• Water monkeys may have been our ancestors.

• Fearsome Mongol warriors played a positive role in the rise of Western Civilization.

• Hindus in India and the Arabs unveiled long-hidden numerical tools needed for modern science to emerge in the West.

• Interchangeable parts appear more than four centuries before Eli Whitney won his historic patent to manufacture muskets with them.

Information Age Tales imparts stories revolving around the wonders of the written word and shows the role technology has played in the rise of past civilizations.

About the Author

Brad Bradford was a B-29 navigator in World War II. A Princeton history major, he was a United Press reporter and managing editor of two small-city newspapers before working thirty-one years at the Kalamazoo Gazette in Michigan. As city editor and ATEX computer system leader, Bradford led its newsroom into the digital age. He currently lives in Illinois.