Radical Evolution: Summary and book reviews of Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau, plus links to an excerpt from Radical Evolution and a biography of Joel Garreau.
Radical Evolution The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human
by Joel Garreau
Hardcover: May 2005,
400 pages.
Paperback: May 2006,
400 pages.
In Radical Evolution, bestselling author Joel Garreau, a reporter and editor for the
Washington Post, shows us that we are at an inflection point in history. As
you read this, we are engineering the next stage of human evolution. Through
advances in genetic, robotic, information and nanotechnologies, we are altering
our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny - and
perhaps our very souls.
Taking us behind the scenes with today's foremost researchers and pioneers,
Garreau reveals that the super powers of our comic-book heroes already exist, or
are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the
country -- from the revved up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to
the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species.
Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear, these enhancements will become
part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven - where
technology's promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness and extend our lives
is the answer to our prayers? Or will they lead us, as some argue, to hell - where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our
entire species? With the help and insights of the gifted thinkers and scientists
who are making what has previously been thought of as science fiction a reality,
Garreau explores how these developments, in our lifetime, will affect everything
from the way we date to the way we work, from how we think and act to how we
fall in love. It is a book about what our world is becoming today, not fifty
years out. As Garreau cautions, it is only by anticipating the future that we
can hope to shape it.
Whatever your views on scientific advancements, there is one factor that is indisputable - they are advancing at an extraordinary rate - Radical Evolution offers four scenarios as to how things could pan out... (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Publishers Weekly
Science buffs fascinated by the leading edges of societal and technological change and readers concerned by the ethical issues that change presents will find much to ponder in Garreau's nonjudgmental look into our possible futures.
Booklist - Donna Seaman
The technoscenarios Garreau explicates are riveting, and of acute importance, as is his reminder that there is much more to life than technology, no matter how amazing it gets.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. Excellent scientific journalism on the challenges arising from a real tipping point in human relations.
Bill McKibben, author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and The End of Nature
Joel Garreau lives well ahead of the curve -even the really big Curve he describes in these pages. One of our foremost chroniclers of change and historians of the future, he's done it again.
Stewart Brand, author of The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility and The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T.
How weird, how soon? That's the question that dominates the debates about the coming of 'post-humanity.' With his customary journalistic acumen and wry humor, Garreau has the answer: much weirder than you imagine, much sooner than you expect.
Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control and Wired editor-at-large
It isn't often an author gets to herald the biggest news in the last 10,000 years. But you'll get the full, uncensored, mind-blowing report here in this entertaining and surprisingly deep book.
Joel Garreau is the author of the bestselling Edge City: Life on the New
Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America, he is a reporter and
editor at The Washington Post, a member of the scenario-planning organization
Global Business Network, and has served as a senior fellow at George Mason
University and the University of California at Berkeley.He lives in Broad Run,
Virginia.
The excerpt at BookBrowse is substantial but if
you want to read even more, you'll find more than enough to hold
your own around in conversation at the
author's website!
Charts the little-known history of
eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century
and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans.
Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined
to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?
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(502 words).
Kirkus Reviews
Bill McKibben, author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and The End of Nature
