Connected Intelligence

Connected Intelligence: The Arrival of the Web Society. By Derrick de Kerckhove. Somerville House Publishing.de

by Derrick de Kerckhove

The advent of the Internet is a technological breakthrough comparable to the invention of the printing press. Its effect on individuals and society appears to have profound consequences that we are only now beginning to understand.

From the bestselling author of The Skin Culture comes a groundbreaking book that provides an essential understanding of the meaning of rapidly growing networks on the World Wide Web and how they affect our lives — from business and commerce to politics, education and the media.

Derrick de Kerckhove speculates on the consequences of massive global networking — and what might happen if it reaches a critical mass of independent connected intelligence.” Will the sum total of people’s connected intelligence be vastly more intelligent than any one person’s intelligence could hope to be? This startling proposition points directly to the possibility that we are currently undergoing one of the greatest leaps in the evolution of our species. Connected intelligence may well be the next step in the evolution of human intelligence.

Updating the communication critique traditions of Harold Innis and Marshal McLuhan, Derrick de Kerckhove focuses his erudition and imagination on issues raised by this growing ecology of computer interaction.

Connected Intelligence is as prescient a road map to the future as we can hope to have for the present.

Derrick de Kerckhove is a Professor in the Department of French and Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.

Wade Rowland, who edited this book, is an author who writes and lectures extensively on new media.