One day soon, says author Glenn Reynolds, individuals will 'œpossess powers once thought available only to nation-states, superheroes, or gods.' The trend is as plain to Reynolds as the 500,000 hits his five-year-old political weblog, Instapundit.com, gets on a busy day. He sees more evidence when he steps into his basement recording studio or pours himself a self-brewed beer. Thirty or 40 years ago, the capital and specialized knowledge necessary for brewing, publishing, and record producing were hard to come by. Today, Reynolds writes, individuals 'œcontrol the means of production,' and the days of big corporations and dictatorial states are numbered.
What a pleasant change it is to read a smart book that 'œdoesn't say the present stinks and the future will be worse,' said John Podhoretz in the New York Post. Reynolds is a respected law professor and space expert, and his 'œinfectiously optimistic' survey of technology's current course sees multiple miracles just around the corner. Extrapolating mostly from his experiences with blogging, he predicts that nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will make the average Joe considerably 'œbetter and stronger and smarter' within the next 30 years. Though some of his readers may lose faith when he 'œwaxes enthusiastic' about our chances of arresting the aging process and colonizing other planets, said Frank Wilson in The Philadelphia Inquirer, he 'œknows how to pack a lot' of ideas into 'œa relatively small space.' This 'œconcise' but 'œhighly informative' book is 'œa must-read' for anyone interested in 'œthe direction things are taking.'
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
From Panopticon to pleasure dome: Dutch prisons transformedUnder the Radar The Netherlands is turning its domed prisons of 'terror' into vibrant community spaces
-
Today's political cartoons - January 12, 2025Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - snowed in, dangerous conditions, and more
-
5 fact-checked cartoons about Meta firing its fact checkersCartoons Artists take on playing chicken, information superhighway, and more
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”