{"product_id":"9780684862699","title":"The Future and Its Enemies : The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eThe Future and Its Enemies\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Virginia Postrel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday we have greater wealth, health, opportunity, and choice than at any time in history. Yet a chorus of intellectuals and politicians laments our current condition -- as slaves to technology, coarsened by popular culture, and insecure in the face of economic change. The future, they tell us, is dangerously out of control, and unless we precisely govern the forces of change, we risk disaster. \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eThe Future and Its Enemies,\u003c\/i\u003e Virginia Postrel explodes the myths behind these claims. Using examples that range from medicine to fashion, she explores how progress truly occurs and demonstrates that human betterment depends not on conformity to one central vision but on creativity and decentralized, open-ended trial and error. She argues that these two opposing world-views -- \"stasis\" vs. \"dynamism\" -- are replacing \"left\" and \"right\" to define our cultural and political debate as we enter the next century. \u003cbr\u003e In this bold exploration of how civilizations learn, Postrel heralds a fundamental shift in the way we view politics, culture, technology, and society as we face an unknown -- and invigorating -- future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003eJames K. Glassman \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e American will prosper as long as we allow our trust in what Virginia Postrel in her brilliant new book, \u003ci\u003eThe Future and Its Enemies,\u003c\/i\u003e calls dynamism -- freewheeling, even playful, change -- [to] overcome our fear of the future.\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Silver \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e A pointed and provocative cultural critique.\u003cbr\u003eAlan Wolfe \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e A lively, engaging, and thought-provoking book.\u003cbr\u003eEtelka Lehoczky \u003ci\u003eSolon\u003c\/i\u003e Vibrant with genuinely remarkable new ideas...Postrel's prose is a delight to read. It bubbles with salubrious little maxims, the kind that reignite one's flagging sense of intellectual adventure.\u003cbr\u003eColin Walters \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Times\u003c\/i\u003e Exciting, a very important book.\u003cbr\u003eArthur Hirsch The Baltimore Sun Virginia Postrel is stirring it up...arousing praise and criticism across the country.\u003cbr\u003eJohn Derbyshire \u003ci\u003eNational Review\u003c\/i\u003e Postrel's aim is to provide a defense of adventurous, optimistic attitudes to social and technological change. That she has done very admirably, with passion and vigor.\u003cbr\u003eAnthony Day \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e The strength of \u003ci\u003eThe Future and Its Enemies\u003c\/i\u003e lies in the author's passionate belief in the inherent virtue in creativity, innovation, and competition.\u003cbr\u003eJames W. Ceaser \u003ci\u003eThe Weekly Standard\u003c\/i\u003e It is a fervent partisan statement, an unabashedly dynamist work. Postrel's conviction displays itself not just in the content of the book, but in the style she has developed to explain it. Postrel writes like a dynamo.\u003cbr\u003eMichael Barone \u003ci\u003eU.S. News \u0026amp; World Report\u003c\/i\u003e In industrial America, centralized bureaucracies believed they could identify and impose what 1910's management expert F. W Taylor called \"the one best way\" In post-industrial America, Virginia Postrel argues in her insightful book The Future and Its Enemies, it makes better sense to set out simple rules, allow flexibility and accountability.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780684862699\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Free Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40978489999566,"sku":"9780684862699","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/O_cf92066a-d8fa-4a86-96ba-d16c5e813815.jpg?v=1646688238","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780684862699","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}