Every age is defined by its technology. The stories of Dickens wouldn’t have been possible without the steam engine and the industrial revolution it brought about. For that matter, neither would the those of Vanderbilt or Carnegie. And what would the 20th century have been like without the internal combustion engine and electricity?
Yet we often miss the fact that stories drive technology as well. Steve Jobs, quite famously but not uniquely, believed that the humanities and technology are deeply intertwined and the power of story has a lot to do with it. Technology, after all, doesn’t live in a vacuum but co-evolves with mankind.
