James Burke

He is the creator, producer and host of many award-winning TV series including Connections (PBS), Connections2 and Connections3 (Discovery), The Day the Universe Changed (PBS), After the Warming (PBS) and Masters of Illusion, for the National Gallery of Art.

With a unique and entertaining perspective on how people and institutions change, Burke has been a popular speaker for such companies as IBM, NASA, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Cisco and countless universities and museums. He has also produced customized videos for companies seeking to explain new technologies and ideas.

His latest book, Twin Tracks, explores the surprising connections among the seemingly unconnected people, events and discoveries that have shaped our modern world. In 2007 he launches an innovative project  an online interactive teaching tool. Users of this revolutionary educational resource will journey through a 3-dimensional web, made up of 2,500 of history’s key personalities interlinked over 20,000 ways, to discover the remarkable serendipity behind humankind’s tireless commitment to invention and innovation.

Drawing upon a wealth of knowledge and dazzling insights, Burke humorously includes such momentous historical coincidences as: “How the popularity of underwear in the 12th century led to the invention of the printing press” or “How the arrival of the cannon led to the development of movies.” 

...you were articulate, brilliant, engaging, insightful and reasonable droll. For all of this, we are profoundly grateful.

Microsoft 

Burke is the bestselling author of Connections, The Day the Universe Changed and The Knowledge Web. His other books include The Pinball Effect, The Axemaker’s Gift and Circles, a collection of his Scientific American monthly columns that ran for six years. He also wrote the introductions in Inventing Modern America (MIT, 2002), and was a contributing author to Talking Back to the Machine (Copernicus, 1999) and Leading for Innovation (Drucker Foundation, 2002).

He is currently a contributor to TIME magazine and in 2007 will release his next book, American Connections, about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

He has advised the National Academy of Engineering, The Lucas Educational Foundation and the SETI project.

With a quick wit and ability to clearly explain complex concepts, the mind of James Burke is like the Internet: ask a question and an interconnected adventure begins.