Alex Wright

Alex Wright is a writer, designer and researcher whose work explores the history of the modern information age. His latest book, "Empire of Ink," looks at the history of the American newspaper. 

Wright's byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and Columbia Journalism Review, among others. He  has also led digital projects at companies including The New York Times, Google News, Etsy, and Hearst Newspapers. 

Visit website |

Books:

Empire of Ink

The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper
History / Biography
Basic Books
June 2026
ISBN 9781541606791
Hardcover, 0 pages

A sweeping history of America's first media revolution: the rise of the newspaper, and the transformation of a fledgling republic into the world's first information superpower. "Takes us beyond the familiar New York papers and editors to a whole continent bursting with the thirst for news. A wonderful read." --Andrew Pettegree, coauthor of The Library No society had ever generated so much ink and paper in so little time. Between the Revolutionary War and the dawn of the twentieth century, the number of American newspapers increased five hundredfold. In Empire of Ink, Alex Wright tells the story of how an unruly young democracy found its voice--shaped by the interplay of new technologies, bold public policies, and a distinctly American zeal for free expression that unleashed the greatest outpouring of print the world had ever seen. It was a wild, boisterous time--populated by gunslinging editors, tramp printers, zealous reformers, brilliant inventors, and literal snake-oil salesmen. Together, they transformed journalism, built a new industry, and helped forge the nation's character. By century's end, this freewheeling press had begun to give way to news syndicates, wire services, and corporate interests. Wealthy media barons seized on new technologies and economies of scale to consolidate power--shaping the mass media that would define the twentieth century. Vividly bringing a pivotal chapter in American history to life, Empire of Ink reveals how the nation's age-old struggles over truth, technology, and power continue to echo into today's digital age. More/less

Informatica

Mastering Information Through the Ages
History / Biography
Cornell University Press
June 2023
ISBN 9781501768675
Paperback, 0 pages

Informatica--the updated edition of Alex Wright's previously published Glut--continues the journey through the history of the information age to show how information systems emerge. Today's "information explosion" may seem like a modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation--or even the first species--to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Christian monasteries.Wright weaves a narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. He suggests that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.We stand at a precipice struggling to cope with a tsunami of data. Wright provides some much-needed historical perspective. We can understand the predicament of information overload not just as the result of technological change but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand. More/less