An intriguing and cheerful look at ways that innovation may reshape society.
Entrepreneur Bhargava and consultant Coutinho-Mason predict new patterns for work and society in this debut nonfiction work.
The future is already here—it just hasn’t gone mainstream yet. That’s the philosophy undergirding the work of the two authors of this book, who make it their business to know where, in the present, the seeds of the future are already beginning to sprout: “What is happening on the edges of most industries or in society—the technological marvels, the ambitious innovations, the bold social agendas—hold the potential to become mainstream in the future, to change how we’ll live and work and what we’ll value,” they write in their introduction. Some of these ideas have already filtered into the popular consciousness, even if they haven’t become routine for everyone, such as remote work, the medical use of psychedelics, and plant-based meat. Others will likely strike readers as completely novel; in the future, the authors assert, children may get a substantial portion of their education passively by playing video games embedded with stealth learning technology. If one lives alone, they say, one may rely on Siri-like virtual assistants, trained to offer people emotional support and companionship. Large companies, in order to better integrate themselves into the community, may invite nonprofits, local businesses, and artists to share their office space, the authors note, and one’s city may be redesigned so that all the places one needs to go daily—work, home, school, parks—are within a 15-minute commute. The new urban center may feature vertical forests—skyscrapers filled with trees and plants to relegate their temperature and muffle noise—and vertical farms, and biotechnology may replace plastic, making products waste-free. This might sound like the stuff of SF, but with each chapter, the authors introduce readers to concepts that make the future seem less dystopian—and right around the corner.
This present-is-future philosophy is why Bhargava and Coutinho-Mason jokingly refer to themselves as “now-ists” rather than futurists. Their prose reflects the optimism and enthusiasm they feel for each new idea, as when they discuss the pre-owned clothes marketplace Depop: “Digital secondhand marketplaces also allow people to flaunt their entrepreneurialism as a key source of status too. If eBay is the Goodwill of the digital secondhand fashion world (huge, functional, but unsexy and hard to navigate) then fashion marketplaces like Depop are its younger, more creative, cooler cousin.” Chapters generally introduce an emerging trend or technology and then highlight an organization or company that’s currently putting it into practice. If there’s a knock on Bhargava and Coutinho-Mason’s method, it’s that they sometimes come across as a bit too rosy in their assessments. For example, the authors choose to focus on how much time artificial intelligence technologies can save artists—highlighting a movie trailer that was made in hours instead of weeks—without addressing how that saved time will likely mean a smaller paycheck. In general, however, these now-ists succeed in making the future a little less scary and a lot more exciting.
Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781646870653
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ideapress Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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