The Future & Its Enemies - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0028741080 ISBN 13: 9780028741086

Synopsis

Today we have greater wealth, health, opportunity, and choice than at any time in history - the fruits of human ingenuity, curiosity, and perseverance. Yet a chorus of intellectuals and politicians loudly laments our condition. Technology, they say, enslaves us. Economic change makes us insecure. Popular culture coarsens and brutalizes us. Consumerism despoils the environment. The future, they say, is dangerously out of control, and unless we rein in these forces of change and guide them closely, we risk disaster. In The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel explodes these myths, embarking on a bold exploration of how progress really occurs. In areas of endeavor ranging from fashion to fisheries, from movies to medicine, from contact lenses to computers, she shows how and why unplanned, open-ended trial and error - not conformity to one central vision - is the key to human betterment. Thus, the true enemies of humanity's future are those who insist on prescribing outcomes in advance, circumventing the process of competition and experiment in favor of their own preconceptions and prejudices.

About this title

Review

James K. Glassman "Columnist for "The Washington Post" Read this wonderful book! Like no other author of social and political commentary, Virginia Postrel celebrates the texture of modern life and shows us how to love the unknowable future.

From the Publisher

Here are 5 great pieces of advance praise for this book:
"The best damn nonfiction I've read in years!" --Tom Peters

"In this bold and compelling book, Virginia Postrel uses a breathtaking range of examples, from music to software to hairstyling, to argue that progress comes not from a master plan but from courage, experiment...and even playfulness. She makes you look again at what you thought you already knew." --Esther Dyson, chairman of EDventure Holdings and author of Release 2.0

"Virginia Postrel skewers the pessimists of both the left and right who see technology as the enemy and nostalgia as their friend. Bubbling with enthusiasm, and fortified with examples that run from computers to shampoo, she exposes those whose futile efforts to dictate the future pose the greatest threat to progress and security alike." --Richard Epstein, University of Chicago Law School, author of Simple Rules for a Complex World

"Virginia Postrel has a radically old-fashioned view of the future. She believes in progress. She thinks the world we are building, you and I, is a decidedly messy place, that nonetheless is turning out pretty nice. Go ahead. Imagine that." --Joel Garreau, author of Edge City: Life on the New Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America

"Showing both an acute eye for the thick textures of social life and a deep understanding of competing strands of current social theory, Virginia Postrel accomplishes here one of the social theorist's hardest tasks: devising new ways to make sense of large amounts of otherwise unconnected, or inexplicable, information about the social and political world....It is a large achievement." --David Post, Temple University Law School, co-director of the Cyberspace Law Institute

About this edition

• ISBN 10: 0028741080
• ISBN 13: 9780028741086
• Binding: Hardcover