Merryn McKinnon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

If you have read Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver—the first volume of his Baroque Cycle (2003)—you will remember the smell of the age he recreates: Wet ink, gossip, gunpowder, and the new arrogance of ...