# Tom Standage

Tom Standage (born in 1969) is a British journalist, deputy editor for The Economist, historian of science and technology, and author of several books. His books A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005) and An Edible History of Humanity (2009) were on the New York Times Best Seller list. He has contributed articles to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, and Wired.

## Quotes

* During Queen Victoria's reign, a new communications technology was developed that allowed people to communicate almost instantly across great distances, in effect shrinking the world faster and further than ever before. A worldwide communications network whose cables spanned continents and oceans, it revolutionized business practice, gave rise to new forms of crime, and inundated its uses with a deluge of information. ... The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press.
** "Preface". The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 2009. pp. xiii–xv. ISBN 0802718795. (quote from pp. xiii–xiv; 1st edition, 1998, Walker & Company)
* As the tides of history have ebbed and flowed, different drinks have come to prominence in different times, places, and cultures, from stone-age villages to ancient Greek dining rooms or Enlightenment coffeehouses. Each one became popular when it met a particular need or aligned with a historical trend; in some cases, it then went on to influence the course of history in unexpected ways. Just as archaeologists divide history into different periods based on the use of different materials—the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age, and so on—it is also possible to divide world history into periods dominated by different drinks. Six beverages in particular—beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola—chart the flow of world history. Three contain alcohol, and three contain caffeine, but what they all have in common is that each one was the defining drink during a pivotal historical period, from antiquity to the present day.
** "Introduction". A History of the World in 6 Glasses. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 2009. pp. 1–6. ISBN 0802718590. (quote from p. 2; 1st edition, 2005, Walker Publishing)
* ... Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a catalyst of social transformation, societal organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. From prehistory to the present, the stories of these transformations form a narrative that encompasses the whole of human history. Food's first transformative role was as a foundation for entire civilizations. The adoption of agriculture made possible new settled lifestyles and set mankind on the path to the modern world. But the staple crops that supported the first civilizations—barley and wheat in the Near East, millet and rice in Asia, and maize and potatoes in the Americas—were not simply discovered by chance. Instead, they emerged through a complex process of coevolution, as desirable traits were selected and propagated by early farmers. These staple crops are, in effect, inventions: deliberately cultivated technologies that only exist as a result of human intervention.
** "Introduction". An Edible History of Humanity. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 2010. pp. ix–xiii. ISBN 0802719910. (quotes from pp. ix–x; 1st edition, 2009)
* When hackney carriages were first introduced into London — these were the first carriages that you could hail in the streets — so, basically taxis — this led to a massive backlash from .. the incumbent providers of rides in London— who were the watermen, who would row people up and down on the river. And that was how you used to get around London. You would hail a boat by the river and say “I want to go to London Bridge” or “I want to go up to Westminster”. And so they all complained and they said their profits were running away on wheels, because these hackney carriages had showed up.
** (September 22, 2021)"Tom Standage with Mark Harris: A Brief History of Motion". Town Hall Seattle, YouTube. (quote at 6:46 of 1:06:49)
* We've been caught out in the past by unexpected exhaust products from transport infrastructure. First it was horse manure, then it was CO². This time it's data. We must not make the same mistake again!
** Launch of the WIPO Technology Trends 2025 Report. The Future of Transportation. WIPO (February 2025).

## Quotes about Tom Standage

* This is Tom Standage's third pocket-sized book delving into the history of science and engineering, and yet again he has found a subject that is not only fascinating, but which also resonates with contemporary issues. In The Victorian Internet, Standage explored the development of the telegraph, which permitted long-distance instantaneous communication for the first time. … In The Neptune File , Standage explained how in the 19th century a new unseen planet was discovered because of its gravitational tugging, which caused Uranus to deviate from its predicted path. … Now we have The Mechanical Turk, the story of the 18th-century automaton that convinced everyone that a machine could play world-class chess, a feat that was only truly achieved in the last decade. Standage reveals how our ancestors reacted to this first apparent example of artificial intelligence. He explains how the machine actually worked, and he brings us up to date with the terrible moment when a computer beat Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion.
** Simon Singh, (19 Apr 2002)"review of The Mechanical Turk: The True Story of the Chess-Playing Machine That Fooled the World by Tom Standage". The Guardian.

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Tom Standage on Wikipedia