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The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future
Books are our first and most lasting form of information technology. Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones—they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world. And they still have lessons to teach us.
Polls indicate reading is on the decline, but as we deal with concerns about artificial intelligence and social and political division, the history of the book offers a path of understanding and patterns for engagement. They can even help us navigate what’s coming next. Starting with the surge of book culture in ancient Athens and then moving through the centuries, from monks and militaries to rebellions and the Renaissance, and even to more modern-day implications of books as tools of liberation and the novel’s impact on our humanity, Miller highlights the features and functions that make books indispensable to cultural evolution. Subject to its own periods of technological upheaval and social unrest, the history of the book can point us away from failed past responses and toward more fruitful adaptations that will benefit us all. The Idea Machine reframes the history of the book as the eye-opening story of humanity’s first mobile information device. Books do more than record thinking; they serve as tools to facilitate it.
More than a history of the book as an object or a simple consideration of the literature it has contained, The Idea Machine is the history of the book as a technology that transformed the peoples and societies that embraced it, and which maintains a vital role in a world where technological advancements seem to render it obsolete and ideological division might render our shared future untenable.
Polls indicate reading is on the decline, but as we deal with concerns about artificial intelligence and social and political division, the history of the book offers a path of understanding and patterns for engagement. They can even help us navigate what’s coming next. Starting with the surge of book culture in ancient Athens and then moving through the centuries, from monks and militaries to rebellions and the Renaissance, and even to more modern-day implications of books as tools of liberation and the novel’s impact on our humanity, Miller highlights the features and functions that make books indispensable to cultural evolution. Subject to its own periods of technological upheaval and social unrest, the history of the book can point us away from failed past responses and toward more fruitful adaptations that will benefit us all. The Idea Machine reframes the history of the book as the eye-opening story of humanity’s first mobile information device. Books do more than record thinking; they serve as tools to facilitate it.
More than a history of the book as an object or a simple consideration of the literature it has contained, The Idea Machine is the history of the book as a technology that transformed the peoples and societies that embraced it, and which maintains a vital role in a world where technological advancements seem to render it obsolete and ideological division might render our shared future untenable.
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Published December 5, 2025
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About the author
Joel J. Miller
8 books10 followersJoel J. Miller is the author of several books including The Revolutionary Paul Revere. His writing has been featured in The American Spectator, Reason, Real Clear Religion and elsewhere. He blogs on faith and spirituality at joeljmiller.com. He and his family live in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 18, 2025
This is such an incredible book. Joel J. Miller digs into the history of the book and it is utterly fascinating. I had no idea the extent that Christians played in the development and preservation of the book. Joel masterfully ties together the physical object, the ideas therein, and the natural progression to today’s large learning models. This is a must read for lovers of the written word.
December 16, 2025
A book about books, what more could a confessed bibliophile ask for?
Joel J. Miller, a man of many talents, but notably for me, the proprietor of the excellent Substack Miller's Book Review, nails it here. In The Idea Machine, Miller argues for the book as a form of information technology. He traces out the history of the book - all the way back to Socrates and his opposition to the book (gasp!) all the way up to current day and where we stand in the world of AI and LLMs.
The subtitle serves as the thesis: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future. A physically beautiful book filled with art and many full-page images add to the appeal.
I was captured from the start when I felt deeply the chapter on Socrates, whose challenges to the book as a technology made me question everything. Do I really not truly know anything? Are these books I own really just a flash in the pan of what I have imagined and then moved on? Do I not understand anything all the way down - the way a master could teach, but a book never could? Thankfully throughout the rest of the book, Miller restores my confidence in the goodness and utility of books.
A couple of last thoughts to conclude my review. First, it is amazing how inseparable the history of the book is with the history of Christianity. From gathering the letters of Paul into one spot and the emerging canon of the Bible, to the writings of Augustine, to monks in the Middle Ages, it is impossible to tell either the history of books without Christianity or to tell the history of Christianity without books.
Second, in the last section of the book, Miller looks at reading books through the lens of science (think Darwin and On the Origin of Species), the founding of America (including some bomb quotes from Thomas Jefferson on collecting books - the man was absolutely irresponsible in his spending on books), and through fiction as a powerful tool for liberation (think Uncle Tom's Cabin).
All this to say that I loved this book and I recommend to fellow book-lovers -- but also to the book skeptic.
"If we fail to recognize the biases of the tools we use, our tools will confound us."
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible"
- Barbara Tuchman
Joel J. Miller, a man of many talents, but notably for me, the proprietor of the excellent Substack Miller's Book Review, nails it here. In The Idea Machine, Miller argues for the book as a form of information technology. He traces out the history of the book - all the way back to Socrates and his opposition to the book (gasp!) all the way up to current day and where we stand in the world of AI and LLMs.
The subtitle serves as the thesis: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future. A physically beautiful book filled with art and many full-page images add to the appeal.
I was captured from the start when I felt deeply the chapter on Socrates, whose challenges to the book as a technology made me question everything. Do I really not truly know anything? Are these books I own really just a flash in the pan of what I have imagined and then moved on? Do I not understand anything all the way down - the way a master could teach, but a book never could? Thankfully throughout the rest of the book, Miller restores my confidence in the goodness and utility of books.
A couple of last thoughts to conclude my review. First, it is amazing how inseparable the history of the book is with the history of Christianity. From gathering the letters of Paul into one spot and the emerging canon of the Bible, to the writings of Augustine, to monks in the Middle Ages, it is impossible to tell either the history of books without Christianity or to tell the history of Christianity without books.
Second, in the last section of the book, Miller looks at reading books through the lens of science (think Darwin and On the Origin of Species), the founding of America (including some bomb quotes from Thomas Jefferson on collecting books - the man was absolutely irresponsible in his spending on books), and through fiction as a powerful tool for liberation (think Uncle Tom's Cabin).
All this to say that I loved this book and I recommend to fellow book-lovers -- but also to the book skeptic.
"If we fail to recognize the biases of the tools we use, our tools will confound us."
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible"
- Barbara Tuchman
December 3, 2025
Miller has written a wonderfully accessible history of the book! As a history teacher, I greatly appreciated reading about so many great thinkers of the past and their interaction with books. Miller makes it very easy to visualize the progression of the book as well as its impact on how we live, read and learn, today. His tone is not condescending in the least. He offers original conversations from those of the past while sharing his thoughts throughout. The conversation enables the reader to also take part. I highlighted a lot and have many notes in the margins (and not just because he told me to).
As the subtitle suggests, it is a journey from the beginning (of books) to where we are now (internet, AI, etc.), and beyond. But Miller doesn't demand that he has the "answers" to the issues technology has presented in our time or that we may encounter in the future. He is an optimist throughout the book, which is refreshing in today's doom-and-gloom culture.
It might be a spoiler but the last line I underlined twice:
"The idea machine built our world and still shapes our future. Its users determine how."
As the subtitle suggests, it is a journey from the beginning (of books) to where we are now (internet, AI, etc.), and beyond. But Miller doesn't demand that he has the "answers" to the issues technology has presented in our time or that we may encounter in the future. He is an optimist throughout the book, which is refreshing in today's doom-and-gloom culture.
It might be a spoiler but the last line I underlined twice:
"The idea machine built our world and still shapes our future. Its users determine how."
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews