In these seductively erudite 300 pages, Steven Johnson makes the contrarian case for a more glass-half-full theory of ingenuity. He argues, mostly persuasively, that the major advances in technology and culture have been more often the result of our craving for distraction and for delight rather than for survival ... In some ways, this book is a compendium of all those other books that take a single product or invention – the colour purple or movable type or cinnamon – and make them the singular focus of history ... If there is a linking narrative to many of these tales it is the understanding that value is always located in rare beauty ... Play is addictive because it offers the potential for a different result each time we engage in it. In this sense it is interesting, or perhaps alarming, to note Johnson’s suggestion that the advances in AI are currently being accelerated by a 'curiosity reward,' which encourages software to explore data containing surprising results and ignore more predictable regions. Game on.

Wonderland makes a swashbuckling argument for the centrality of recreation to all of human history. The book is a house of wonders itself. Marvelous circuits of prose inductors, resistors and switches simulate ordinary history so nearly as to make readers forget the real thing ... If Wonderland inspires grins and well-what-d’ya-knows of legitimate wonder — and it does — it also liberates its audience to wantonly savor them ... This is not a book to be a stickler about; that would be like pontificating about microbrews instead of just getting drunk. But for sterner historians, it’s worth noting that our ringmaster in Wonderland plays fast and loose with his central definition ... My resistance to optimism, never formidable, dissolves by the “Wonderland” preface. But optimist-pessimist is a useful enough binary of character, and Johnson must read differently to pessimists, who might fight the intoxicating Wonderland, arguing that 'fun' is a tool of the surveillance state, petrochemical dealers or something equally sinister. No matter. Intoxication is the way of Johnson. His loyal readers will cotton to the idea — calico to it! — that the future lies in the fun, and thus that the future is fun.

Wonderland is no mere diversion. It is a rare gem: a serious (occasionally too serious) take on a seemingly frivolous subject ... This is an ambitious book. Johnson’s goal is nothing short of upending our innovation narrative. For starters, we have the sequencing wrong. Trivial pursuits don’t follow serious endeavors, they precede them and, crucially, inspire them, even if unintentionally. Play is prologue. This is not a self-evident thesis, which is why, I suspect, Johnson goes to such lengths to hammer it home. He revels in the slow reveal. At first, his historical anecdotes feel digressive. Why is Johnson prattling on about some cave bear that met its demise 43,000 years ago in what is today Slovenia? But a reader will follow a good writer anywhere, and so we follow. Usually (not always), Johnson delivers ... Our illogical, enduring fascination with play remains one of life’s great mysteries. That is precisely what makes the subject so fascinating, and Wonderland such a compelling read.

Mr. Johnson’s narrative is crammed with elegantly told vignettes from the history of ideas...But what do all these subjects have in common? By the end, Mr. Johnson is invoking the brain’s dopamine system in a neural pseudo-explanation; his conclusions seemingly reduce the idea of play to a simple desire for novelty, driven by something he calls 'the surprise instinct' ... But much of the book’s material seems to be thrown in merely because it is interesting (which it is), and the ambition to link it all under the conceptual umbrella of 'play' doesn’t work.

As his fans will attest, Johnson’s writing derives its appeal from his ability to illuminate complex ideas in unpretentious language ... The qualities that have earned him such success are evident in Wonderland. In his strongest chapters, Johnson connects a spark of inspiration from the Islamic Golden Age to the marvels of modern technology ... Johnson’s prose is nimble, his knowledge impressive. By necessity, he oversimplifies a number of scientific advances, and as he concedes, some of the historical trends he identifies have been discussed in greater detail in other recent books. Mostly, though, Wonderland is original and fun, as well it should be, given the subject.

"Wonderland brims with these sorts of tidbits, memorable moments, and bits of information that light up the mind ... Johnson, a writer who hangs out at the intersection of science, technology, and culture, surprises and delights as he traces the path of how various objects of fun and fancy — mechanized dolls, follies, and music boxes — drove advances, but perhaps most compelling is his chapter on how public spaces sparked seismic shifts in thinking ... Johnson’s tone is sometimes that of an enthusiastic professor and at others that of a salesman trying with oozy smarts and charm to convince you of things you might not want to buy. The breeziness sometimes masks some questionable leaps in thinking...there are other slippery bits here, but the ideas are generally so intriguing and Johnson such an enthusiastic guide that the ride is consistently entertaining if not always solid.

Johnson is an engaging writer, unable to bore the reader even when you know what his point is going to be. His method is to start with an odd detail and then trace its even odder effects on unrelated fields ... Johnson, as you can tell, has a flair for the telling fact that would thrill a QI elf ... But Johnson’s concept of play feels too broad to be really useful...Johnson’s idea of play is fuzzier: it includes fashion, shopping, food, taste, phantasmagoria, magic, sport, gambling, coffee houses, mountaineering and zoos. With a little finessing, his book might easily have been a history of serendipity or of aimless curiosity ... Johnson has a disarming but not always convincing optimism. Not that he ignores the darker aspects: he suggests that the desire for cotton, which greatly intensified the slave trade and the gruesome working conditions of early industrialisation, may have been the worst thing to happen to the world between 1700 and 1900. But the basic arc is towards a more enlightened present ... I do hope he is right, but this sense of history as pulled along by 'the propulsive force of delight' feels a little overtaken by events.