Episode One: Information, Please!

What if one book could contain the sum of human knowledge? Jill Lepore looks at the history of an improbable Enlightenment idea, tracing it from Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia and beyond. For a transcript of this episode, click here.

KEY SOURCES

Structural Differentiation in Social Media by Sorin Adam Matei and Brian C. Britt

Encyclopedia Britannica Salesman Mourns End of Print Edition” by Lila Shapiro

The Hive” by Marshall Poe

“The Evolution of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: from the Macropaedia to Britannica Online” by Dorothy Auchter

The 1919 World Book online

The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica online

Food From The Sun” by Encyclopedia Britannica (1967)

Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution by Joseph Reagle, Cecelia A. Musselman, Jackie Koerner, Omer Benjakob, Stephen Harrison, Yochai Benkler, Brian Keegan, William Beutler, Phoebe Ayers, and Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze (2020)

How to (try to) Lie With Wikipedia” by Jessamyn West