Read the lesson plan for this Booknotes. 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. 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 the Author Virginia Postrel is the editor of Reason , a columnist for Forbes and its companion technology magazine, Forbes ASAP , and a contributing editor to the online political magazine IntellectualCapital . Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , Wired , and other major publications.