Jul 24, 2017 · 1 min read
Fantastic piece, Beth. In reading an advance copy of Bhu Srinivasan’s AMERICANA this month, in touring the 400 year history of American capitalism, the parallels are astounding. When we put down that history book we fail to connect the dots. Did you know that early punchcard computing came from an innovative approach to tracking patient data in the Civil War? If not for a late 1800s chat with a Civil War surgeon, that orthogonal might not have sparked the idea for punchcard computing. This is also what my own book focuses on in the importance of why the Liberal Arts matter – because they tug on our mind, forcing us to grapple with discomfort and ambiguity. Thanks for writing this great article.
