Johnson, Steven 1968-

The ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world by Steven Johnson ( Book )
9 editions published between 2006 and 2009 in English and held by 1,993 libraries worldwide
"An account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London--and an exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease in cities. In the summer of 1854, a devastating cholera outbreak seized London just as it was emerging as a modern city: more than 2 million people packed into a ten-mile circumference, a hub of travel and commerce, continually pushing the limits of infrastructure that's outdated as soon as it's updated. Author Johnson chronicles Snow's day-by-day efforts as he risked his own life to prove how the epidemic was being spread. When he created the map that traced the pattern of outbreak back to its source, Dr. Snow didn't just solve a pressing medical riddle--he established a precedent for the way modern city-dwellers, city planners, physicians, and public officials think about the spread of disease and the development of the modern urban environment.--From publisher description."--Source other than the Library of Congress.

Everything bad is good for you : how today's popular culture is actually making us smarter by Steven Johnson ( Book )
11 editions published between 2005 and 2006 in English and held by 1,957 libraries worldwide
The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter. Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, the author argues that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to the Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands. This book is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. The author demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. The glow of the video game or television screen will never be regarded the same way again.

Mind wide open : your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life by Steven Johnson ( Book )
9 editions published between 2004 and 2010 in English and held by 1,796 libraries worldwide
Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works-its chemicals, structures, and subroutines-and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods. The possibility entertained in this book is that you can follow another path, in which learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug. In Mind Wide Open, Johnson embarks on this path as his own test subject, participating in a battery of attention tests, learning to control video games by altering his brain waves, scanning his own brain with a $2 million fMRI machine, all in search of a modern answer to the oldest of questions: who am I? Along the way, Johnson explores how we "read" other people, how the brain processes frightening events (and how we might rid ourselves of the scars those memories leave), what the neurochemistry is behind love and sex, what it means that our brains are teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs, why music moves us to tears, and where our breakthrough ideas come from. Johnson's clear, engaging explanation of the physical functions of the brain reveals not only the broad strokes of our aptitudes and fears, our skills and weaknesses and desires, but also the momentary brain phenomena that a whole human life comprises. Why, when hearing a tale of woe, do we sometimes smile inappropriately, even if we don't want to? Why are some of us so bad at remembering phone numbers but brilliant at recognizing faces? Why does depression make us feel stupid? To read Mind Wide Open is to rethink family histories, individual fates, and the very nature of the self, and to see that brain science is now personally transformative-a valuable tool for better relationships and better living.

The invention of air : a story of science, faith, revolution, and the birth of America by Steven Johnson ( Book )
14 editions published between 2008 and 2009 in English and held by 1,614 libraries worldwide
Recounts the story of Joseph Priestley--scientist and theologian, protégé of Benjamin Franklin--an 18th-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the U.S.

Where good ideas come from : the natural history of innovation by Steven Johnson ( Book )
6 editions published in 2010 in English and held by 1,399 libraries worldwide
Johnson addresses an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? He provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how the ideas are born that push careers, lives, society, and culture forward.

Emergence : the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software by Steven Johnson ( Book )
3 editions published between 2001 and 2004 in English and held by 1,174 libraries worldwide
Emergence is what happens when an interconnected system of relatively simple elements self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behavior. It's a bottom-up model rather than being engineered by a general or a master planner, emergence begins at the ground level. Systems that at first glance seem vastly different--ant colonies, human brains, cities, immune systems--all turn out to follow the rules of emergence. In each of these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies a scale above them: ants create colonies, urbanites create neighborhoods. Author Steven Johnson takes readers on an eye-opening intellectual journey from the discovery of emergence to its applications. He introduces us to our everyday surroundings, offering surprising examples of feedback, self-organization, and adaptive learning. Drawing upon evolutionary theory, urban studies, neuroscience, and computer games, Emergence is a guidebook to one of the key components of twenty-first-century culture. Until recently, Johnson explains, the disparate philosophers of emergence have worked to interpret the world. But today they are starting to change it. This book is the riveting story of that change and what it means for the future.

Interface culture : how new technology transforms the way we create and communicate by Steven Johnson ( Book )
2 editions published in 1997 in English and held by 847 libraries worldwide
"Steven Johnson bridges the gap that yawns between technology and the arts. Drawing on his own expertise in the humanities and on the Web, he not only demonstrates how interfaces - those buttons, graphics, and words on the screen through which we control information - influence our daily lives, but also tracks their roots back to Victorian novels, early cinema, and even medieval urban planning. The result is a lush cultural and historical tableau in which today's interfaces take their rightful place in the lineage of artistic innovation." "With Interface Culture, Johnson brilliantly charts the vital role interface design plays in modern society. Just as the great novels of Melville, Dickens, and Zola explained a rapidly industrializing society to itself, he argues, Web sites, Microsoft Bob, flying toasters, and the landscapes of video games tell the digital society how to imagine itself and how to get around in cyberspace's unfamiliar realm." "The role once played by novelists is now fulfilled by the interface designer, who has bridged the gap between technology and everyday life by providing a conceptual framework for the vast amounts of information and computation that surround us." "Johnson boldly explores the past - a terrain hardly any tech thinker has dared enter and one that throws dazzling light on the modern interface's roots. From the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages to the rise of perspective drawing in the Renaissance, from Enlightenment satire to the golden age of television, Interface Culture uses a wealth of venerable "interface innovation" to place newfangled creations like Windows 95 and the Web in a rich historical context.".

The ghost map [the story of London's most terrifying epidemic-- and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world by Steven Johnson ( Recording )
6 editions published between 2006 and 2008 in 3 languages and held by 298 libraries worldwide
London has an outbreak of cholera in 1854. Two men, Reverend Henry Whitehead and Dr. John Snow, decide to take action.

The ghost map : a street, an epidemic and the two men who battle to save Victorian London by Steven Johnson ( Book )
1 edition published in 2006 in English and held by 125 libraries worldwide

The best technology writing 2009 ( Book )
3 editions published in 2009 in English and held by 123 libraries worldwide
In his Introduction to this beautifully curated collection of essays, Steven Johnson heralds the arrival of a new generation of technology writing. Whether it is Nicholas Carr worrying that Google is making us stupid, Dana Goodyear chronicling the rise of the cellphone novel, Andrew Sullivan explaining the rewards of blogging, Dalton Conley lamenting the sprawling nature of work in the information age, or Clay Shirky marveling at the 'cognitive surplus' unleashed by the decline of the TV sitcom, this new generation does not waste time speculating about the future. Its attitude seems to be: Who needs the future? The present is plenty interesting on its own. Packed with sparkling essays culled from print and online publications, The Best Technology Writing 2009 announces a fresh brand of technology journalism, deeply immersed in the fascinating complexity of digital life.