This is the first major work in nearly a decade by one of the world’s greatest thinkers. A succinct, startling and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, “The Grand Design” is a book that will inform – and provoke – like no other

A staggering amount of the landscape of modern life is populated by environments and technology designed to entertain and delight us, and the pursuit of novelty and wonder continues to be a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change.Most history books don’t concern themselves with play and delight. History is the serious business of war, treaties, governments and monarchs; it is imagined as a battle for survival, for power, for freedom, for wealth. Wonderland is a different kind of history book. Throughout history, Johnson locates the cutting-edge of innovation wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused. He introduces us to the colourful innovators of leisure: the explorers, proprietors, showmen and artists who changed the trajectory of history with their luxurious wares, exotic meals, taverns, gambling tables and magic shows. Everyone knows the old saying ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, but if you carry out a paternity test on many of the modern world’s most important ideas or institutions, you will find, invariably, that leisure and play were involved in their conception as well