The "soft edge" of the title refers to the intangibles surrounding
technology's impact on society. The second half of this overview of
the development of information techonology gets mired down in
elaborating on this definition, to the study's detriment. The
"natural history" offered by Levinson, an educator and writer (New
School for Social Research) takes the study of information from the
dawn of written language to word processing, showing, for instance,
how radio, which would presumably be replaced by television,
survived by finding its niche with rock 'n' roll - something TV
could never offer on the same scale. The implications that Levinson
derives from the first part of his study, stressing the ways in
which new media have always had a profound impact on human society,
are often thought-provoking though sometimes unconvincing. For
instance, Levinson ties the success of monotheism to the
Israelites, who had an alphabet, as opposed to earlier monotheistic
Egyptians, who had hieroglyphics and, thus, lower literacy rates.
However, the assertion that the ancient Egyptians ever were
monotheistic is only a theory, and is not substantial enough to
build yet other theories on, which Levinson repeatedly attempts to
do. Further pitfalls await the author as he attempts to attack the
World Wide Web and artificial intelligence. His arguments
increasingly ignore the larger impact of new information technology
on contemporary society altogether, instead addressing such
seemingly unrelated topics as copyright law, author compensation,
and online education. Levinson's sprawling investigation and
proliferating theories lessen the strength of his clever final
chapter, which uses instant coffee as an ingenious metaphor for
information - you can describe it, he says, and it is an efficient
way to transport a product, but if you can't taste it, what good is
it? Levinson should have excised the chapters that don't tie in
with his central theme. As it stands, The Soft Edge is too soft,
and without taste. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Soft Edge is a one-of-a-kind history of the information revolution. In his lucid and direct style, Paul Levinson, historian and philosopher of media and communications, gives us more than just a history of information technologies. The Soft Edge is a book about theories on the evolution of technology, the effects that human choice has on this (r)evolution, and what's in store for us in the future.
Paul Levinson's engaging voice guides us on a tour that explains how communications media have been responsible for major developments in history and for profound changes in our day-to-day lives. Levinson presents the intriguing argument that technology actually becomes more human. We see how information technologies are selected on the basis of how well they meet human needs. Why is email more like speech than print is? Why didn't the arrival of television destroy the radio? These and many more thought provoking questions are answered in The Soft Edge.
Boldly extending and deepening the pathways blazed by McLuhan, Paul Levinson has provided us with a brilliant and exciting study of life with our old media, our new media, and the media still to come.
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