The Meaning of the 21st Century: A VItal Blueprint of Ensuring Our Future - Softcover

Martin, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 190391986X ISBN 13: 9781903919866

Publisher: Eden Project Books, 2007

Synopsis

A devastating analysis of the direction we are headed and a powerful prescription for change — from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Wired Society.

James Martin, one of the world’s most widely respected authorities on the impact of technology on society, argues that we are living at a turning point in human history. “We are travelling at breakneck speed into an era of extremes — extremes of wealth and poverty, extremes in technology, extremes in globalization. If we are to survive, we must learn how to manage them all.” In researching this volume, the author interviewed forty world experts in fields as diverse as information technology, medical ethics, climate change, and the economics of poverty. Martin contends that although we face huge challenges and conflicts, it is in the scientific breakthroughs of the new century that we will find new hope. In clear, penetrating and insightful prose, he addresses the key questions of our age and proposes an interconnected set of solutions to these problems.

About this title

About the Author:

James Martin studied physics at Oxford, served in the British Army and then joined IBM in Paris as a systems engineer. He lectures all over the world and has written extensively on management and technology. He holds honorary doctorates from all six continents. He also has established a school devoted to the subject of this book at the Said Business School at Oxford University

From Publishers Weekly:

A freewheeling, sometimes scatterbrained romp through the technological challenges, dangers and opportunities facing the human race in the new century, the newest book by information age guru Martin is in equal measures exhilarating, thought provoking and just plain crazy in its zeal for emerging technologies. Martin, known for his influential The Wired Society (1978), believes that nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and other advances could not only moderate but eventually reverse the effects of global warming while giving us superhuman strength, superior intelligence and the possibility of living to 1,000 or beyond. On the potentials of supercomputing, Martin writes, "Human intelligence is very broad but relatively shallow, while machine intelligence is very narrow but can be miles deep." The first half of this assertion is well borne out by his book, which skips lightly from sobering discussions of cataclysmic climate change, massive natural disasters and terrorism to breathless riffs on hydroponics, pebble-bed nuclear reactors and "transhumanism." Often reading like a course catalogue for Oxford University's new James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, the book should arguably have been split into two or three installments, but tech enthusiasts will find much to spur debate. (Aug.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Eden Project Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 190391986X
• ISBN 13: 9781903919866
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576