The late 20th century is trumpeted as the Information Age by pundits and politicians, but in this text, the authors challenge this widespread assumption. In a sweeping history of information technology from the ancient Sumerians to the world of Alan Turing and John von Neumann, the authors show how revolutions in the technology of information storage - from the invention of writing 5000 years ago to the mathematical models for describing physical reality in the 17th and 18th centuries to the introduction of computers - profoundly transformed ways of thinking.