Celebrated author and historian of Science, James Gleick will be joining us to discuss his new history of 'The Telephone'.

The Telephone

A supernatural instrument bringing voices from afar, the telephone burst onto the world stage 150 years ago, a triumphant story of individual ingenuity and vision. Instantly, the ability to speak across vast distances began to transform every part of life: from business organization to military tactics, from news gathering to sex work.

But the story of The Telephone is also one of corrupt scheming and ruthless tactics; the race to the patent office, to make money, a contest replete with bribery, fraud and speculation. And no one, not even its inventors, realised what the telephone was good for or how ubiquitous it would become.

As the telephone settled into the background - in offices and on streets, on bedside tables and kitchen walls - people forgot how they ever lived without it. Now, as landlines, telephone books and telephone boxes vanish into the past, science writer James Gleick - bestselling author of Chaos - shows how this commonplace object irreversibly changed not only the world but who we are as human beings.

James Gleick

James Gleick was born in New York City and graduated from Harvard College. For ten years he was an editor at theNew York Times.Chaos: Making a New Sciencewas a 1987 National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize nominee, and has been translated into eighteen languages. His most recent book was Genius: Richard Feynman and modern physics. 'The Telephone' is his latest history of science book.

Carissa Véliz

Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prophecy-Prediction-Future-Ancient-Oracles/dp/0385550979) which was named on of the '23 Books We’re Looking Forward to This Spring' by the New York Times Book Review in 2026. Her other books include Privacy Is Power (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control/dp/1787634043) (an Economist Book of the Year, 2020) and the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-handbook-of-digital-ethics-9780198857815?cc=gb&lang=en&#).

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