From Publishers Weekly
One of the central concerns of the current "information age" is the difficulty of ordering and making sense out of the glut of information that flies at us from every direction, at all hours, in increasingly creative and invasive ways. Wiener, the man who gave us the tools to create and nurture this age by founding the science of cybernetics, has fallen prey to that glut, with his legacy and impact largely forgotten and misunderstood. Conway and Siegelman attempt to reassess that legacy, painting a compelling, readable portrait of "a dark hero who has fallen through the cracks in the information age, and of his fight for human beings that is the stuff of legend." The authors, who co-wrote Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change, celebrate Wiener's genius and his voracious appetite for various modes of scientific and social inquiry, and describe how this interdisciplinary mental agility was the key to Wiener's development of cybernetics. At the same time, the authors humanize their subject with revealing but tasteful ruminations on his manic depression, his physical limitations and his sometimes petty and competitive nature. Perhaps most importantly, Conway and Siegelman chronicle Wiener's own awakening to the implications of the science he was pioneering and to the dangers they posed to his future and to ours. Photos. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
No one saw earlier or more fully the possibilities and perils of automated information systems than did Norbert Wiener, whose remarkably prescient vision receives overdue attention in this compelling biography. Beginning with the wunderkind years that put Wiener in graduate school at age 14, the authors limn the development of the brilliant mind that created the basic framework for a statistical science of communication. As that mind pioneered new understandings of feedback loops and analog information systems, a cybernetic paradigm emerged, opening new horizons for computer designers, biologists, and sociologists. Conway and Siegelman chronicle Wiener's highly fruitful collaboration with the computer maven John von Neuman, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and others who applied cybernetic principles. They also detail Wiener's estrangement from cold warriors he accused of misusing his discoveries for political purposes and from corporate leaders he feared would use cybernetics to exploit and displace workers. At a time when information technology is delivering new powers to government security agencies and new clients to unemployment offices, readers will read this life story with great interest. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

New Scientist (05 February 2005)
"Document[s] the fascinating details of [Wiener’s] life and rightly emphasise[s] his attempts to warn . . . of the social implications of technology."

Wired (December 2004)
"Vivid [personal] accounts...shed light on Wiener’s inner life....Makes unpacking the mechanics of electronic computing even more worthwhile."

Minneapolis Star Tribune (January 16, 2005)
"A compelling…lucid account of Wiener’s prodigy and prophecy….A tremendous achievement…and…wonderful portrait of a man…necessary to our new century."

Albuquerque Journal (January 9, 2005)
"Highly informative and lyrically written...a monumental achievement, sure to engage those curious about our age’s scientific wellsprings.

Investors Business Daily (January 5, 2005)
"[Wiener] put the ghost in the machine….[He] was a visionary….Cybernetics…forever altered the course of automation…in…devices from electric coffeepots to computers."

The Hindu Business Line (February 21, 2005)
"A brilliant biography... The authors... bring back the forgotten Dark Hero... [Wiener’s] rebellion was something that Einstein would approve of."

The New York Times (March 1, 2005)
"A brilliant mind....Wiener...founding [information age] theorist...defined...computer[s]...robotics and automation....He was chronically ahead of his time."

The New York Times Book Review (March 20, 2005)
"[Dark Hero] shines….A fascinating account….Wiener was both brilliant and personally intriguing….As a character, he was larger than life."

Cleveland Jewish News (February 18, 2005)
"Poignant, beautifully told....Wiener [descended from] famous...rabbis...and Moses Maimonides....Delightful sentences...pepper the book....The...prose flow[s] seamlessly."

New York Times Book Review (March 27/April 3, 2005)
"Editors' Choice....The great pioneer of information science whose personal life was a mess."

Book Description
In the middle of the last century, Norbert Wiener-ex-child prodigy and brilliant MIT mathematician -founded the science of cybernetics, igniting the information-age explosion of computers, automation, and global telecommunications. Wiener was the first to articulate the modern notion of "feedback," and his ideas informed the work of computer pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon, and anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. His best-selling book, Cybernetics, catapulted him into the public spotlight, as did his chilling visions of the future and his ardent social activism. So what happened? Why is his work virtually unknown today? And what, in fact, is Wiener's legacy? In this remarkable book, award-winning journalists Conway and Siegelman set out to rescue Wiener's genius from obscurity and to explore the many ways in which his groundbreaking ideas continue to shape our lives. Based on a wealth of primary sources (including some newly declassified WW II and Cold War-era documents) and exclusive interviews with Wiener's family and closest colleagues, the book reveals an extraordinarily complex figure, whose high-pressure childhood, manic depression, and troubled relationships had a profound effect on his scientific work. No one interested in the intersection of technology and culture will want to miss this epic story of one of the twentieth century's most brilliant and colorful figures.

From the Inside Flap
[AUTHORIZED "BLURBS" PRINTED IN FULL ON BACK COVER/INSIDE FLAP:] "I cannot imagine a new history more significant in the here and now than this one, eight years in the making. The wisdom and grace of its presentation, moreover, put me in mind of Edward Gibbon." - Kurt Vonnegut "The information age was launched in 1948 with a brilliant book called Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener, a pioneer in computers and communications. This fascinating biography of Wiener captures his brilliance and his dark side, and it shows how his new way of thinking made him one of the most influential innovators of our times. It's a truly exciting tale." - Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life "Dark Hero of the Information Age is superb. Norbert Wiener, who was my mentor for a decade, was a brilliant and complex man, and the authors relate Wiener's ideas in illuminating detail. It is certainly a thrilling book—and the story is still continuing today." - Oliver Selfridge, MIT Media Lab pioneer of Artificial Intelligence "This exciting book offers a timely correction to the misapprehensions and neglect surrounding Norbert Wiener’s deeply felt concerns for the social and human consequences of automation and cybernetics." - Stuart Bennett, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Sheffield "Norbert Wiener was a great thinker and a tortured person. His work was an inspiration to me, as it was to many, but his personal history was only known through the filter of watered down anecdotes. I read Dark Hero of the Information Age with great interest and emotion; it is a revelation of the man behind the mind." - Benoit Mandelbrot pioneer of chaos theory and fractal geometry author of The (Mis)behavior of Markets "Dark Hero of the Information Age is doubly fascinating for the drama of Wiener’s erratic personal odyssey and the way in which each episode expands our understanding of the benefits and perils of contemporary technology. Conway and Siegelman weave a user-friendly narrative, written for non-experts who want to understand where we are now and how we got there, yet I believe the experts too will find themselves surprised into a new thoughtfulness." - Mary Catherine Bateson Institute for Intercultural Studies, author of Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery

About the Author
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman are award-winning journalists and the authors of Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change and Holy Terror: The Fundamentalist War on America's Freedoms in Religion, Politics, and Our Private Lives. They live in New York City.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In 1906, Norbert Wiener was named "The Most Remarkable Boy in the World." A child prodigy, he entered college at age eleven, earned his Ph.D. at eighteen, and then began his brilliant career at MIT. In 1948 he launched a scientific revolution with his book Cybernetics, which defined the modern science of communication and control in machines and living things. His work heavily influenced legends of twentieth-century science and society: computer pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and labor kingpin Walter Reuther. Yet today, the man, his work, and his prescient warnings have been virtually forgotten." "In this biography, award-winning journalists Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman set out to rescue Wiener's genius from obscurity and to explore the many ways in which his revolutionary ideas continue to shape our lives. They retrace Wiener's globe-trotting odyssey: his torturous upbringing and lifelong battle with manic-depression; his inspired technical work that played a pivotal role in the Allied victory in World War II; and the "big bang" of the information age when cybernetics burst on the postwar scene." "Through interviews with Wiener's family and colleagues, the authors reconstruct a life marked by eccentricity and tumultuous relationships. They draw on newly declassified government documents to show how the FBI and CIA pursued Wiener at the height of the Cold War to thwart his social activism and the growing influence of cybernetics at home and abroad." The science that Norbert Wiener invented has only grown in significance for modern life. "Feedback," a term he popularized, now refers to automated machinery, "smart" technology, and human communication - the new new thing is actually old. But he also warned of the dangers inherent in new electronic and biological technologies that could exceed human control, making him not just a mathematical genius but a social visionary as well.

FROM THE CRITICS

Clive Thompson - The New York Times

Wiener was both brilliant and personally intriguing, an absent-minded professor straight out of central casting. As a character, he was larger than life; as a scientist, he was smaller than history.

Clive thompson

Wiener was both brilliant and personally intriguing, an absent-minded professor straight out of central casting. As a character, he was larger than life; as a scientist, he was smaller than history.— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly