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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>A passionate proponent of the dynamic approach, Postrel analyzes how true progress stems from the ideas of individuals unencumbered by nostalgia for the past or the static assumptions and bureaucratic rules of the present.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>Today 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. <br> In <i>The Future and Its Enemies, </i> 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. <br> 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<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Michael Barone <i>U.S. News & World Report</i> 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.<br><br>Alan Wolfe <i>The New Republic</i> A lively, engaging, and thought-provoking book.<br><br>Anthony Day <i>Los Angeles Times</i> The strength of <i>The Future and Its Enemies</i> lies in the author's passionate belief in the inherent virtue in creativity, innovation, and competition.<br><br>Arthur Hirsch The Baltimore Sun Virginia Postrel is stirring it up...arousing praise and criticism across the country.<br><br>Colin Walters <i>The Washington Times</i> Exciting, a very important book.<br><br>Daniel Silver <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> A pointed and provocative cultural critique.<br><br>Etelka Lehoczky <i>Solon</i> 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.<br><br>James K. Glassman <i>The Washington Post</i> American will prosper as long as we allow our trust in what Virginia Postrel in her brilliant new book, <i>The Future and Its Enemies, </i> calls dynamism -- freewheeling, even playful, change -- [to] overcome our fear of the future.<br><br>James W. Ceaser <i>The Weekly Standard</i> 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.<br><br>John Derbyshire <i>National Review</i> 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.<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Virginia Postrel</b> is the editor of <i>Reason</i> magazine and a columnist for <i>Forbes</i> and its companion technology magazine, <i>Forbes ASAP.</i> Her work also appears in <i>The New York Times, </i> the <i>Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal</i> and other major publications. She lives in Los Angeles. Her Web site is at www.dynamist.com

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