Steven Johnson at UCSB

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World

Photo by David Bazemore

“One of the Top 10 Brains of the Digital Future.” Prospect magazine

One of our most inventive thinkers, Steven Johnson is a leading light of today’s interdisciplinary, collaborative, open-minded approach to innovation and his writings have influenced everything from cutting-edge ideas in urban planning to the fight against terrorism. He is the bestselling author of nine books – including Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation and How We Got to Now. In his latest book, Wonderland, Johnson shows how the pursuit of wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change, and that future is found wherever people are having the most fun.