Wonderland

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of eleven books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, Wonderland, and The Ghost Map. He's the host and co-creator of the Emmy-winning PBS/BBC series How We Got To Now, and the host of the podcast American Innovations. He lives in Brooklyn and Marin County, California with his wife and three sons.

"A house of wonders itself. . . . Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d'ya-knows" -The New York Times Book Review

"A rare gem. . . . Our illogical, enduring fascination with play remains one of life's great mysteries. That is precisely what makes the subject so fascinating, and Wonderland such a compelling read." -The Washington Post

"The parade of humanity Johnson presents in this lively (and generously illustrated) work leads us to the reassuring conclusion that history is often made not by nerds in lab coats, but by ingenious humans hankering for more intriguing ways to pass the time." -O, The Oprah Magazine

"Johnson's writing derives its appeal from his ability to illuminate complex ideas in unpretentious language . . . Johnson's prose is nimble, his knowledge impressive . . . Wonderland is original and fun, as well it should be, given the subject." -The San Francisco Chronicle

"Wonderland brims with. . .tidbits, memorable moments, and bits of information that light up the mind. . . .[Johnson] surprises and delights as he traces the path of how various objects of fun and fancy-mechanized dolls, follies, and music boxes-drove advances." -The Boston Globe

"Mr. Johnson's narrative is crammed with elegantly told vignettes from the history of ideas. . . . The book is full of excellent facts." -The Wall Street Journal

"Johnson . . . provides a compelling counterintuitive argument that the Industrial Revolution, democracy, and the computer age were all driven by diversions and appetites that historians too often ignore." -Kirkus (starred review)

"In an entertaining and accessible style, he takes tangents that arrive at sometimes startling conclusions, like a magician practicing misdirection...Johnson connects the dots in a way that sheds new light on everyday concepts." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Johnson is a master storyteller, weaving disparate elements together into a rich and seamless tapestry of technology and human history." -Booklist (starred review)

"An engaging survey full of unexpected connections that readers of a historical or sociological bent will find particularly riveting." -Library Journal

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Fashion and Shopping

The Calico Madams

The sea snail Hexaplex trunculus lives in shallow waters and tidal pools along the coast of the Mediterranean, and along the shores of the Atlantic, from Portugal down to the western Sahara. To the untrained eye, the murex snail, as it is also called, looks like an ordinary mollusk, housed in a conical shell ringed by bands of spikes. Millions of years ago, the snail evolved a kind of bioweapon used to sedate prey and defend itself against predators: an inky secretion that contains a rare compound called dibromoindigo. Almost four thousand years ago, the Minoan civilization based in the Aegean islands discovered that the murex snail secretion could be used as a dye to create one of the rarest of shades: the color purple.

Over time, the purple dye took on the name of a town in southern Phoenicia, Tyre, where it was mass-produced. The exact procedure for manufacturing Tyrian purple is unknown today, although Pliny the Elder included a fragmentary recipe in his Natural History. Modern attempts to re-create the dye suggest that more than ten thousand snails were required to produce just one gram of Tyrian dye. But if the production techniques remain a mystery, the historical record is clear about one thing: Tyrian purple endured as a symbol of status and affluence for at least a thousand years. Bands of Tyrian purple were woven into the tunics of Roman senators; a child conceived by one of the emperors of Byzantium was given the honorific Porphyrogenitus-literally, "born in the purple." Over the millennium that passed from the age of the Phoenicians to the fall of Rome, an ounce of Tyrian purple dye was worth significantly more than an ounce of gold, a valuation that compelled sailors to explore the entire coastline of the Mediterranean for colonies of murex snails.

Eventually, though, the supply of Hexaplex trunculus in the Mediterranean could not keep up with the demand for Tyrian purple, and a few intrepid Phoenician sailors began to contemplate more ambitious voyages in search of the mollusk, beyond the placid waters of the inland sea, out onto the gray, turbulent waves of the Atlantic itself. The Phoenicians had already passed through the Strait of Gibraltar in search of alluvial tin deposits, their distinctive cedar-planked ships, powered by thirteen oarsmen on each side, hugging the coast of Spain through waters that, technically speaking, belonged to the Atlantic. But it was the murex snail that compelled them to take on the towering waves and uncharted waters of the open ocean. They ventured down the coast of North Africa, where they eventually discovered a bounty of sea snails that would keep the aristocracy cloaked in purple well into the Dark Ages. The legacy of these voyages -extends far beyond simple fashion. The passage out of the Mediterranean into the vast mystery of the Atlantic marked a true threshold moment in the history of human exploration. "The Phoenicians' now-proven aptitude for sailing the North African coast was to be the key that unlocked the Atlantic for all time," Simon Winchester writes. "The fear of the great unknown waters beyond the Pillars of Hercules swiftly dissipated." Think of all the ways the world would be transformed by vessels launched from Mediterranean countries, exploring the Atlantic and beyond. Those vessels would eventually leave in search of gold, or religious freedom, or military conquest. But the first siren song that lured them onto the open ocean was a simple color.

Garment design has driven technological innovation from the very beginning of human existence. Shears, sewing needles, and scrapers for converting animal skins into protective coverings for the body are among the oldest tools recovered from the Paleolithic age. To be sure, much of that innovation was utilitarian in nature. Ascots and hoop skirts aside, most clothing has some functional value, and certainly our ancestors fifty thousa