The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. (With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout)' Synopsis Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen.

It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. Boston Globeįrom the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself. Washington PostĪ thrilling journey of ideas. The MillionsĪ bracing swim in the waters of science, technology and fiction. (With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout.) ReviewĪ time-jumping, head-tripping odyssey. He explores the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture-from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges.

A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological-the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H.

From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.

Time travel a history by james gleick