The Book Prize Index

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood begins with the tale of colonial European explorers and their fascination with African talking drums and their observed use to send complex and widely understood messages back and forth between villages far apart, and over even longer distances by relay. The book then covers informational implications of technologies from drum signaling to the long distance telephone. Starting with symbolic written language, The Information examines the history of intellectual insights central to the development of information theory, detailing key figures responsible such as Claude Shannon, Charles Babbage (1791-1871), Ada Byron, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and John Archibald Wheeler.

HistoryHistory · medium confidenceHistory81 signalsLlm Classifier: History -> HistoryOpen Library: Information science -> ScienceOpen Library: Library & Information Science -> ScienceTechnology, Computing & AIScience & Discovery

Award History

3 wins · 6 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Royal Society Science Book PrizeMajor2012WinnerSecondary source
PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize: Historical Nonfiction2012WinnerSecondary source
PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award2012WinnerSecondary source
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor2012FinalistSecondary source
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and TechnologyMajor2011FinalistSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionMajor2011FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (6)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Claude Shannon85%
    • Alan Turing70%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Stephen Hawking40%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    30 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.