In terms of content arrangement, this book is basically organized in chronological order. The first volume tells eight topics from the beginning of human civilization to modern great navigation; The second volume tells eight other topics from the rise of modern science to the application of atomic energy.
Talking about the theme of this book, Dr. Wu Jun said in the preface that people always have some ideals and beliefs. Even if today is not perfect, the future will eventually become beautiful, and to achieve all this, we need to rely on the power of civilization. I hope readers can read a civilized story written by computer scientists and engineers from the original intention of Dr. Wu Jun, and I believe there will be new gains.
It is reported that on June 25th, Dr. Wu Jun will come to Beijing from the United States to attend the launching ceremony of the new book "Light of Civilization", and in the next few days, he will participate in many new book sharing and exchange activities nonstop, including two lectures with college students and teachers in Peking University and Tsinghua, and two communication and sharing sessions with industrial people held by Lu Zhengjun Ce and InfoQ respectively.
Creative Process According to relevant sources of People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House, the release of Light of Civilization is a magnificent turn from science and technology to humanities by Dr. Wu Jun. As soon as the new book was listed in Amazon online bookstore, it won the first place in the category of cultural history. At the beginning of the planning and operation of this book, the project team specially invited Wang Shi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vanke Co., Ltd., and Zhang Shousheng, a famous physicist and professor of Stanford University in the United States, to write a preface and recommend it.
In the preface, Mr. Wang Shi commented that writing history requires historical talent, historiography and historical knowledge. Dr. Wu Jun's historical talent, we have already experienced it in "Waves"; His accumulation of scientific research work in different cultures and institutions, coupled with long-term field visits in Europe and America, has also given him rare historical data thickness and related knowledge; The successful transition from a scientist to an investor often enables him to express his opinions beyond his peers. These unique conditions ensure that he can single-handedly, from the vast amount of raw materials, reasonably select fragments and put together a jigsaw puzzle of the light of civilization.
In the preface, Mr. Zhang Shousheng said that the reason why ancient Rome was strong and the United States was prosperous was that the founding fathers really accepted the inspiration from Euclid, understood and refined the scientific spirit, and applied it flexibly, thus realizing the way of governing the country. It can be seen that the cross-disciplinary communication of human civilization can create new miracles. In today's world, it is not so important to establish geographical ties between railways and navigation, but building a bridge of knowledge and connecting islands in different fields of knowledge is the driving force to promote civilization. The cross-domain connection of knowledge can effectively increase the density of information, which will inevitably lead to the big explosion of civilization in our network age.
In the preface, Mr. Wu Jun also said that history textbooks are basically about the great achievements of princes and generals in attacking cities and plundering land, and the expansion and rise and fall of empires rarely involve the contributions of various regions in the world to civilization. When choosing the theme, Light of Civilization basically did not choose the great martial arts of princes and generals, but followed the following principles. The first is to select some people and things that have had a great influence on human civilization, but are often ignored, and provide some supplements for the well-known content (such as ridge planting method in China). Second, the selected themes are all familiar to Wu Jun, giving priority to the things he has seen (such as porcelain) and the things that have happened in the places he has been (such as the Renaissance). Third, and most importantly, the theme of this book was deeply understood and understood by Wu Junyou. He chose dozens of fragments from the history of human civilization to tell his understanding of civilization. Although these fragments are far from summarizing the process of human civilization, Wu Jun believes that it is possible to see the development of civilization if they are organically spliced together.
In order to ensure the rigor of the book, Dr. Wu Jun had an exchange and discussion with many experts on some special topics. Another highlight of this book is that many photos in the book were taken all over the world by himself, and some of them were drawn by Dr. Wu's daughter.
Preface to the catalogue of works /I
Chapter 25 Knowledge makes people free-the invention and influence of printing/1
Section 1 History of Copying Books
Section 2 Printing Times
Section III Gutenberg's Contribution
The birth of modern publishing industry
Section 5 knowledge makes people free
Chapter 26 The Dawn of a New Era-Enlightenment /4 1
Section 1 Freedom under autocracy
Section 2 Diderot and Encyclopedia
The third quarter "Voltaire the Fighter"
Section 4 Rousseau and Social Contract Theory
Section 5 Montesquieu and separation of powers
Section 6 Why in18th century and why in France?
Chapter 27 Modern Reform Mode-From Meiji Restoration to Modern Japan /8 1
The first section edo period
In the second quarter, the black ship incident
Section III Fukuzawa Yukichi
The fourth quarter the process of reform
Section 5 Imperfect Reform
Chapter 28: Let Justice Return to Society —— American Antitrust and Progressive Movement/128
Section 1 Monopoly and the Formation of Monopoly: By-products of the Second Industrial Revolution
Section 2 The dividing line between the new century and the old century
The fourth great man in the third quarter
The fourth quarter progressive era
Section 5 Century Anti-monopoly
Chapter 29 Innovation cannot rely on accidental discovery-the invention of penicillin/187
The first section three accidental discoveries
Section 2 Long and Difficult Medicalization
There is always an opportunity in the third quarter.
Section 4 Drug Abuse
Chapter 30: Turning an Arms into an Enemy —— From the League of Nations to the United Nations /23 1
The first section is the ideal of a scholar.
Section 2 From Atlantic Charter to United Nations Declaration
Section III Establishment of the United Nations
In the fourth quarter, casting swords into plows
Chapter 31 The Prosperity of Hollywood /273
Section 1 Film Industry and Hollywood
Section 2 Prosperity in the Great Depression
Section 3 Golden Age and Transitional Era
Section 4 Oscar Awards
Section 5 Hollywood and Silicon Valley
Chapter 32 Where We Come from and Who We Are-Discovery and Function of Genes /322
The first section genetic mystery
The structure of the gene in the second quarter
The magic gene in the third quarter
Where will we go in the fourth quarter?
Postscript /370
Index /375
The works influenced this book and won the honor of "20 14 China Good Book".
In May of 20 15, this work was listed as "20 100 Excellent Books Recommended to National Teenagers in 20 15" by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
In 20 17, this work was selected as the cultural book of "50 popular books in 20 17" by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
Wu Jun released information.
Publishing House: People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House
Publication year: 20 17-3- 1
Page count: 392
Pricing: 59.00 yuan
ISBN: 9787 1 15448569
Author's brief introduction Dr. Wu Jun, graduated from Tsinghua University and Johns Hopkins University, is a famous expert in natural language processing and search, and a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Author of award-winning bestsellers Tide Head and Beauty of Mathematics.
Dr Wu Jun was one of the early employees of Google. At Google, he and three colleagues, including Singh (academician of American Academy of Engineering, world-famous search expert) and Matt Katz (official spokesman of Google's anti-cheating), started the research field of anti-cheating in online search, and won the Google Engineering Award for this. In 2003, he and Dr. Zhu Huican, chief engineer of Google Global Architecture, established the Sino-Japanese Korean Search Department. Dr Wu Jun is the main designer of Google's China, Japan and Korea search algorithm. During his stay at Google, he also led many R&D projects, which were highly praised by CEO eric schmidt and founder sergey brin.