A technologist’s perspective on history. A historical perspective on technology.
I’m Henry Nash, a British writer and technologist fascinated by what the past can teach us about the future.
I’ve spent more than four decades working with technology, much of that as an entrepreneur, watching successive waves of supposedly revolutionary technology arrive and change the way we live and work.
Alongside that has been a lifelong fascination with history. Not simply with what happened and when, but with the people involved, the decisions they made and the consequences they rarely saw coming.
Increasingly, I’ve come to think those two worlds belong together.
Technology can tell us a great deal about what might happen next. History tells us rather more about what human beings tend to do when it does.
And human beings, unfortunately, don’t upgrade nearly as quickly as their technology.
Conversations with the past
That idea sits behind Letters to Dead People and More Letters to Dead People, written with Ivor Share.
The premise is deliberately simple: if we could write to the people who made history, what would we say to them?
The letters range across scientists, politicians, inventors, explorers, artists, monarchs, generals and assorted troublemakers. Some deserve congratulating. Others require rather more difficult conversations.
The books and companion podcast use humour and imaginary correspondence to explore the people behind history, the things they got right, the things they got spectacularly wrong and what, if anything, we might learn from them.
Looking forwards by looking backwards
More recently, I’ve become interested in a bigger question.
Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly. Social media has transformed the way information travels. Disinformation can cross the world almost instantly, and increasingly it can be created by machines as well as people.
All of that feels unprecedented.
But is it?
Previous generations lived through revolutions in communication, publishing, automation and information. They struggled with technological disruption, propaganda, institutional resistance, misinformation and fears about machines replacing human skills.
The technology is different.
Some of the human problems are remarkably familiar.
That’s the territory I’m currently exploring in a new project with the working title How to Save Society.
It asks what history, technology and what we know about human behaviour might teach us about navigating the combined challenges of AI, social media and disinformation.
Not because history contains a convenient instruction manual for the future.
But because ignoring several thousand years of human experience seems an unnecessarily difficult way to start.
Writing, speaking and conversation
I write and speak about the places where history, technology and society meet, including:
- what previous technological revolutions can teach us about AI;
- how changes in communication alter societies;
- why misinformation spreads so effectively;
- what happens when almost everyone becomes a publisher;
- how people and institutions respond to disruptive technology;
- and the broader question at the heart of my work: what can we actually learn from history?
I’m available for radio and television interviews, podcasts, articles, panels and speaking engagements.
Stay in touch
If these are the sort of questions that interest you too, subscribe to Lessons From History.
One story from the past. One thought about the world today.