"The Diffusion of Columbus's Letter through Europe, 14931497," University of Southern Maine, Osher Map Library, http://usm.maine.edu/maps/web-doc.u.ment/1/5/sub-/5-the-diffusion-of-columbuss-letter-through-europe-1493-1497.

41 bringing artifacts and knowledge

Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circ.u.mnavigation of the Globe (New York: William Morrow, 2004).

42 including the exciting new derivatives product: indulgences

Hans J. Hillerbrand, The Protestant Reformation, rev. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), pp. ixxiii, 6667.

43 but thousands of copies distributed to the public were printed in German

"How Luther Went Viral," Economist, December 17, 2011.

44 more than a quarter of them written by Luther himself

Ibid.

45 beginning a wave of literacy that began in Northern Europe and moved southward

Tom Head, It's Your World, So Change It: Using the Power of the Internet to Create Social Change (Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2010), p. 115.

46 the printing press was denounced as "the work of the Devil"

Charles Coffin, The Story of Liberty (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1879), p. 77.

47 with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's Revolution of the Spheres

William T. Vollmann, Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (New York: Norton, 2006).

48 At the beginning of January 1776

"Jan 9, 1776: Thomas Paine Publishes Common Sense," History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/thomas-paine-publishes-common-sense.

49 ignite the American War of Independence that July

David McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), p. 112.

50 codified by Adam Smith in the same year

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1776).

51 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was also published in the same year

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1776).

52 a counterpoint to the prevailing exhilaration about the future

T. H. Breen, "Making History," New York Times Book Review, May 7, 2000.

53 quantum computing

Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (New York: Doubleday, 2011), Chapter 1.

54 digital data by companies and individuals

McKinsey Global Inst.i.tute, Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Compet.i.tion, and Productivity, May 2011.

55 grown by a factor of nine in just five years

"The 2011 Digital Universe Study: Extracting Value from Chaos," IDC, June 2011, http://idcdocserv.com/1142.

56 telephone call grew shorter by almost half

Tom Vanderbilt, "The Call of the Future," Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2012.