Dancing Treefrog reviewed Twin Tracks by James Burke
Review of 'Twin Tracks' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Interesting! He repeatedly traces two connections between events in past history and a modern item or concept of today. For example, how the US attack on the Tripoli pirates in 1804 lead to the invention of fishsticks, how a fake collection of epic Gaelic verse published in 1760 lead to organ transplants, or how the Boston Tea Party lead to contact lenses, etc.
And 22 other examples.
(For the computer folk, he traces how the British Empire's revival of long-dead Sanskrit in India lead to cybernetics.)
Note: the connections aren't necessarily causal. Sometimes a "connection" along a path might be no more than one person was at the same party as some other person, or had been or was or becomes boyfriend or girlfriend of some other person. (Although the author might mention things along the way that connect to still other things - such as how the fake collection …
Interesting! He repeatedly traces two connections between events in past history and a modern item or concept of today. For example, how the US attack on the Tripoli pirates in 1804 lead to the invention of fishsticks, how a fake collection of epic Gaelic verse published in 1760 lead to organ transplants, or how the Boston Tea Party lead to contact lenses, etc.
And 22 other examples.
(For the computer folk, he traces how the British Empire's revival of long-dead Sanskrit in India lead to cybernetics.)
Note: the connections aren't necessarily causal. Sometimes a "connection" along a path might be no more than one person was at the same party as some other person, or had been or was or becomes boyfriend or girlfriend of some other person. (Although the author might mention things along the way that connect to still other things - such as how the fake collection of Gaelic verse started the Romantic movement.)
The interesting thing about each connection he traces is that outside of beginning and ending at the same events/concepts, there are no connections between the two. Two sequences start and finish at the same time, but otherwise don't connect with each other.
It appears to be intended to connect with his other books such as [b:Connections|186713|Connections|James Burke|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|180486], [b:Knowledge Web|2008744|Knowledge Web|James Burke|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|2012748], and [b:Circles Fifty Roundtrips Through History Technology Science Culture|1233575|Circles Fifty Roundtrips Through History Technology Science Culture|James Burke|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182115528s/1233575.jpg|2128318].
It's a book I'm keeping!