A riveting history of an idea that changed us so profoundly, we forgot we had even been changed. Time Travel, like so much of his work, is simply indispensable.' -Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe 'Magnificent. Synthesis leads to elucidation leads to stunning, original insight. In these pages, time flies.' -John Banville 'James Gleick is a master historian of ideas-no one else can do what he does. Wells's time machine for an invigorating ride through the most baffling of the four dimensions. But Gleick remembers.' -Lev Grossman, Books Editor of TIME and author of The Magicians Trilogy, 'In his enthralling new book, James Gleick mounts H.G. 'James Gleick is a master historian of ideas-no one else can do what he does. (With a color frontispiece and black-and-white illustrations throughout) Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.

He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture-from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H.

'A time-jumping, head-tripping odyssey.' - The Millions 'A bracing swim in the waters of science, technology and fiction.' - Washington Post 'A thrilling journey of ideas.' - Boston Globe From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.

Time travel a history by james gleick