Jerry D. Ward

For years--usually with friends and a bit of wine--I puzzled over the question of why, for thousands and thousands of years, very little seemed to change in terms of the material lives of average people, then all of a sudden we had an Industrial Revolution. Capitalism, whatever that was, came along and now we are all rich--at least relative to non-capitalist nations. A dozen or so years ago I got serious about understanding exactly what capitalism was and what had happened. After a lot of reading, a lot of thinking, and far more writing than has made the cut here, out came this book. I have a BS in Physics from Caltech and, in my 40's, took a year off from real life to earn a Masters in Business Economics from UCLA. I am far from being an economist, but have found that I was quite comfortable with economic thinking--I tend to be kind of a policy wonk.

I am coauthor with Professor Emeritus William L. Garrison of UC Berkeley of Tomorrow's Transportation: Changing Cities, Economies, and Lives published in 2000 by Artech House.

I am now retired and living in San Diego with my wife Penny and our two poodles, Britain and Paris.