Walter Isaacson's passion lies at the intersection of American culture and technology. Most of his biographies—of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs—examine the innovators behind the devices and programs that lie at the heart of our society.

His latest book, "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution," focuses on the community dynamics that have helped build the technology that drives the United States today. 

At the event "Science and Story: The History of the Future," produced by the World Science Festival in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society, Issacson told John Hockenberry that one of the driving ideas behind "The Innovators" was to dispel the "lone wolf" myth of modern technology.

"We give a little too much credit to the lone inventor who, in the basement or the garage, comes up with a lightbulb moment and innovation occurs," he says. 

Isaacson also explores the intersection of culture and technology in American history and in our lives today. "There are two distinct strands, I think, in the American character, which you can read [Alexis de] Toqueville on," he explains.

"One is our maker culture character, the quilting bees and barn raisings and everything else. The other great strand in the history of technology and the history of America is to form community and to make connection," he says. "And those two strands interweave interestingly, because the do-it-yourself culture in America is really a do-it-ourselves culture in which people love to get together and sort of do a barn raising together or a quilting bee together or a Maker's Faire together."