Too Big to Know, by David Weinberger: A Book Review

Millions of students across the world attend universities and institutions of higher learning in pursuit of knowledge. At the end of our university experience, there is an expectation that we will become at the very least fairly familiar with that knowledge we spent four years of our lives pursuing. Yet, as more people become connected through the internet and other information networks, the expanding knowledge-base becomes increasingly unmanageable. No longer, says David Weinberger in his insightful book, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room is the Room, can knowledge be neatly summarized in an encyclopedia series, and no longer can there be an effective separate class of ‘experts’ who know more than anyone else in a specific field. Weinberger demonstrates that knowledge is too dispersed, too extensive, and too interconnected for the traditional mediums of paper and human expertise, and society’s increasing reliance on networked information is an accurate reflection of this trend.

In his book Weinberger presents a fascinating perspective on the development of our society’s definition of ‘knowledge’, arguing that the means by which we record information profoundly affects our perception of knowledge itself. For the past 2000 years, paper and various forms of physical written material were, along with the oral tradition, the dominant forms of knowledge preservation and dissemination. The limitations of paper and memory, including difficult transport, expensive production, limited space, and temporary nature meant that knowledge was an exclusive commodity, the purview of the few with the resources and time to commit to its pursuit. Knowledge was also strictly defined, consisting of ‘facts,’ discrete items of knowledge known to be true. In such a way, knowledge was seen as a great warehouse, containing an ever-increasing number of ‘facts’ which were categorized into discrete subject-areas.

With the advent of information networks in the 1960s, and the internet in the 1980s, knowledge, according to Weinberger, underwent a revolution not seen since the invention of paper. There is now more knowledge and more open access to it than at any other period in human history. Boundary lines between subjects are becoming increasingly blurred, and people strive not to compartmentalize, but to connect and integrate. Weinberger argues that problem solvers are now able to draw upon a whole range of possible solutions that they might not have otherwise considered. Depth of knowledge of a single subject is becoming secondary in importance to the ability to gather and coordinate knowledge from a wide variety of disparate sources, and through insightful analysis and fascinating new research, Weinberger shows that the new networked knowledge increases understanding and productivity in fields such as the sciences, business, and education, and that it enables individuals to gain greater exposure and make better-informed decisions.

Too Big to Know is an interesting counterpoint to Nicholas Carr’s critique of the internet’s networked system of knowledge: The Shallows, which was previously reviewed in this column. Carr’s theory argues that the frenetic and ‘shallow’ nature of internet activity is actually physically decreasing our ability to execute long, complicated thought processes that has been traditionally maintained and preserved by the use of books. Too Big to Know is optimistic without being laudatory about networked information, demonstrating both the promise shown by interconnected knowledge networks, and the risk of degradation of ‘knowledge’ into a cacophony of all ideas that are expressed on the Web, no matter how extreme and nonsensical. Weinberger’s account is well-written, balanced, and intuitive, and an interesting examination of a phenomenon that is changing our lives in profound and meaningful ways.

Rating: 4/5