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Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, From Atoms to Economies
Author: Cesar Hidalgo
File Type: epub
What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MITs antidisciplinarian Cesar Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciencesand including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order. At first glance, the universe seems hostile to order. Thermodynamics dictates that over time, order--or information--will disappear. Whispers vanish in the wind just like the beauty of swirling cigarette smoke collapses into disorderly clouds. But thermodynamics also has loopholes that promote the growth of information in pockets. Our cities are pockets where information grows, but they are not all the same. For every Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Paris, there are dozens of places with economies that accomplish little more than pulling rocks off the ground. So, why does the US economy outstrip Brazils, and Brazils that of Chad? Why did the technology corridor along Bostons Route 128 languish while Silicon Valley blossomed? In each case, the key is how people, firms, and the networks they form make use of information. Seen from Hidalgos vantage, economies become distributed computers, made of networks of people, and the problem of economic development becomes the problem of making these computers more powerful. By uncovering the mechanisms that enable the growth of information in nature and society, Why Information Grows lays bear the origins of physical order and economic growth. Situated at the nexus of information theory, physics, sociology, and economics, this book propounds a new theory of how economies can do, not just more, but more interesting things. **ReviewFinalist for the 2015 Hayek Book and Lecture Prize The concept of information is necessary to make sense of anything that is not a boring featureless mass, including life, mind, society, and value. Why Information Grows lucidly explains the foundations of this essential concept, while creatively applying it in exciting new ways. It is filled with interesting ideas, and a pleasure to read. Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct and *How the Mind Works* Mr Hidalgo succeeds brilliantly in bringing his complex subject to life. His book is full of nuggets, from memorable phrases to interesting metaphors. *Economist* Written in an accessible and entertaining style.... Hidalgo has made a bold attempt to synthesise a large body of cutting-edge work into a readable, slender volume. This is the future of growth theory and his thought-provoking book deserves to be widely read. *Financial Times* Contains some innovative thinking about what drives growth that could help us to navigate the turbulence of the ever more interconnected global economy. *Nature* Thought-provoking...Well written and accessible, the book is full of interesting ideas that deserve to be read and discussed. *CHOICE* An impassioned argument for the advantages of an information-centric view of economic growth, and for understanding the different capacities of nations to provide solutions to human problems... Hidalgo persuasively demonstrates the value of this approach by placing the ideas firmly in their historical context, both in information theory and in physics... Hidalgos perspective on economic wealth is wildly fresh and creative. Physicists will enjoy reading about familiar ideas in new ways, and will also find value in learning how these ideas can be applied fruitfully in areas seemingly far away from physics. Economists and other social scientists will find new concepts ripe for profitable use. *Physics World* Anybody interested in the future of mathematical theory in economics should read Cesar Hidalgos book Why Information Grows. There are many things to like about this lucid account of the evolution of our scientific understanding of information. One of the most important may be the simplest. It illustrates what it means to think like a physicist. Paul Romer, founding director of the NYU Stern Urbanization Project A mind-stretching, unconventional book that draws on information theory, physics, sociology and economics to explain economic growth and why it occurs in some places, not all. *Pittsburgh Tribune-Review* Hidalgo invites us to understand the economy in an entirely different way.... [A] novel, holistic take on the dismal science. *Kirkus Reviews* Why Information Grows shows us how humans infuse information into matter, making it more valuable than gold. Hidalgos work brilliantly spotlights the true alchemy of the twenty-first century and its impact from economic complexity to national competitiveness. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Distinguished Professor and Director of Northeastern Universitys Center for Complex Network Research, and author of *Linked* Economies are built out of information. This has been true from the Stone Age to our knowledge economy today. Yet until Cesar Hidalgos breakthrough book, we have not had a deep account as to how and why this is so. This exciting, important book is a major step toward a twenty-first century theory of growth. Eric Beinhocker, Executive Director, Institute for New Economic Thinking, University of Oxford and author of *The Origin of Wealth* This beautifully written and carefully researched book may set in motion a paradigm shift in economic thinking. Blending deep theory with detailed data, Hidalgo demonstrates that countries grow, firms prosper, and individuals thrive when they enmesh themselves in diverse, talented networks that produce complex physical order, i.e. information. Why do economies grow? Because information does. Scott Page, Professor of Complex Systems, Political Science, and Economics at the University of Michigan and author of *The Difference* The diverse set of perspectives that Cesar Hidalgo brings to the eternal question of growthfrom economic development theories to big data mining engines to elegantly crafted visualizationsunderlies the central thesis of Why Information Grows diversity. Including many diverse perspectives will ultimately create maximum complexity and chaos, which ultimately creates growth. Hidalgo makes a powerful case for the importance of creativity and imagination in our societys ability to make informationand economiesgrow. John Maeda, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and author of *The Laws of Simplicity* About the Author Cesar Hidalgo leads the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab. He lives in Cambridge Massachusetts with his wife Anna and their daughter Iris.
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Author: Elizabeth R. Varon
File Type: pdf
Loyal Americans marched off to war in 1861 not to conquer the South but to liberate it. So argues Elizabeth R. Varon in Armies of Deliverance, a sweeping narrative of the Civil War and a bold new interpretation of Union and Confederate war aims. Northerners imagined the war as a crusade to deliver the Southern masses from slaveholder domination and to bring democracy, prosperity, and education to the region. As the war escalated, Lincoln and his allies built the case that emancipation would secure military victory and benefit the North and South alike. The theme of deliverance was essential in mobilizing a Unionist coalition of Northerners and anti-Confederate Southerners. Confederates, fighting to establish an independent slaveholding republic, were determined to preempt, discredit, and silence Yankee appeals to the Southern masses. In their quest for political unity Confederates relentlessly played up two themes Northern barbarity and Southern victimization. Casting the Union army as ruthless conquerors, Confederates argued that the emancipation of blacks was synonymous with the subjugation of the white South. Interweaving military and social history, Varon shows that everyday acts on the ground--from the flight of slaves, to protests against the draft, the plundering of civilian homes, and civilian defiance of military occupation--reverberated at the highest levels of government. Varon also offers new perspectives on major battles, illuminating how soldiers and civilians alike coped with the physical and emotional toll of the war as it grew into a massive humanitarian crisis. The Unions politics of deliverance helped it to win the war. But such appeals failed to convince Confederates to accept peace on the victors terms, ultimately sowing the seeds of postwar discord. Armies of Deliverance offers innovative insights on the conflict for those steeped in Civil War history and novices alike.**ReviewElizabeth Varon has served up a fresh and convincing interpretation of Northern policy and goals in the Civil War. She portrays how an initial purpose to deliver the presumed legions of white Unionists in the South from suppression by Confederate domination evolved into a crusade to liberate whites and blacks alike from the iron grip of the slave power and slavery. This book offers a new perspective on the searing conflict of 1861-1865 that continues to provoke controversy today. - James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom The Civil War EraDrawing on her mastery of the Civil War era, Elizabeth Varon delivers a sweeping and bold synthesis that seamlessly blends the military, political, cultural, racial, and religious currents of the tragic conflict. Her deft use of deliverance as a motif for understanding the wartime motivations of both nations provides an astute perspective on this endlessly fascinating period in United States history. -- Joan Waugh, co-author of The American War A History of the Civil War EraArmies of Deliverance offers a fresh, innovative, and quite readable account of the American Civil War. By recasting the conflict as a war of liberation, Varon presents new insights along with revealing evidence (especially from more moderate voices) that make this an important book for historians as well as a most enlightening one for general readers. Students and veteran scholars alike will learn a great deal from this fine book. -- George C. Rable, author of Damn Yankees! Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate SouthIn this sweeping, comprehensive, and informed analysis of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Varon suggests new ways of interpreting old issues and questions. Northerners, she tells us, came to see the war in almost biblical terms delivering white Southerners from an ill-fated course of secession and slaves from bondage. In white Southerners rejection of these lofty Northern objectives is to be found the failure of Reconstruction. -- Richard Blackett, author of The Captives Quest for Freedom Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and the Politics of Slavery Witnessing intense debates over the meaning of Confederate monuments, many twenty-first-century Americans assume that Lost Cause southerners have long had the upper hand in the battle over Civil War memory. In her well-crafted and perceptive narrative, Elizabeth Varon offers a necessary corrective to that view. It was the rhetoric of deliverance, she contends, that not only won the hearts and minds of Union soldiers and shaped Lincolns policies, but also, in the end, made military victory possible.-- Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash The 400-Year Untold History of Class in AmericaA fresh interpretation of the Civil War that illuminates why Americans took up arms against each other. An accessible work of scholarship that will be of great interest to students of Civil War history. - Kirkus Reviews About the Author Elizabeth R. Varon is Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia. She is the author of numerous award-winning books, including Southern Lady, Yankee Spy The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy (OUP, 2003), Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859, and Appomattox Victory, Defeat and Freedom at the End of the Civil War (OUP, 2013).
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