Alderman, N (2025) Don’t burn anyone at the stake today (and other lessons from history about living through an information crisis). Fig Tree, London. ISBN 9780241777633
Abstract
In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate, the epoch we’re living through? She calls this epoch the Information Crisis. The internet has flooded us with more knowledge, opinions, ideas, opportunities, as well as verbal attacks and misinformation, than ever before. It lets us learn more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly, it brings us together and also divides us in new ways, it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no going back. But we have been here before. In fact, this is humanity’s third information crisis. The first, the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, and the second, the invention of the printing press 600 years ago, drastically reshaped our perceptions, interactions and mental landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information, people become afraid and angry, unsettled and distressed, as well as more knowledgeable, educated and curious. By looking at those previous information crises, both the turmoil and the advances, Alderman asks what we can learn from the past to better understand our present, and prepare for our future.
| Item Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Chancelry and Research Management School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Feb 2026 16:09 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Feb 2026 16:09 |
| URN: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17579 |
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