Register for Steven Johnson's Book Talk on March 16th

Christine Flanagan
February 27, 2009

Author and outside.in creator Steven Johnson returns to Providence on March 16th to discuss his latest book The Invention of Air. Like his recent bestselling work, The Ghost Map, Johnson uses another little-known historical story to explore themes that have long engaged him: how innovative ideas emerge and spread in a society.

A reflection on religion and science – and how they can co-exist – The Invention of Air draws on the fascinating life of the late-18th-century British theologian and political theorist Joseph Priestly, generally credited with discovering oxygen. A protégé of Benjamin Franklin, friend of Thomas Jefferson and radical thinker who played key roles in the invention of ecosystem science as well as the founding of the intellectual development of the United States, Priestly exerted profound influence on the shape and course of America's great experiment in nation-building.Writing for Salon, reviewer Andrew O'Hehir described The Invention of Air as "easy and indeed delightful to read. But it aims high. Johnson is a wide-ranging enthusiast with a catholic appetite for intriguing facts and a Marxian appetite for searching for structures that underlie social phenomena."

"I've always been interested in this problem of the moment of change in society, whether it be social transformation or intellectual transformation. How do you describe that change? Are there principles that keep recurring at different moments in time?" Steven Johnson

Join us on March 16th at our BIF studio. Light refreshments will be served. Books will be available for purchase.

Steven Johnson and The Invention of Air Discussion and Signing
March 16, 2009
4:00 p.m.
Business Innovation Factory
60 Valley Street, Unit 25
Providence, Rhode Island
RSVP to Tori Drew

Related

• We're launching a BIF Book club in March and aptly, our first book is The Invention of Air. Registration details will be available in early March but in the meantime, if you would like to be part of the group or have suggestions on its structure, drop us a line.
• More about Steven Johnson: With six eclectic books under his belt — four published within the past four years — Johnson has a gift for consilience. In other words, he has a knack for not only looking at things on a number of different scales but also combining insights from a variety of disciplines and cultures and experiences to create connections not previously conceived. His earlier books include best-sellers The Ghost Map, Everything Bad is Good for You and Emergence. He's also a web entrepreneur who founded popular sites Feed, Plastic and, most recently, outside.in, a site that aggregates local news down to the neighborhood level.