Critiques en avant-premièreSteven Johnson

Steven Johnson proposes that a new model of political change is on the rise transforming everything from local government to classrooms to health care. It’s a compelling new political worldview that breaks with traditional categories of liberal or conservative thinking. Johnson explores this innovative vision through a series of fascinating narratives: from the “Miracle on the Hudson” to the planning of the French railway system; from the battle against malnutrition in Vietnam to a mysterious outbreak of strange smells in downtown Manhattan; from underground music video artists to the invention of the Internet itself. At a time when the conventional wisdom holds that the political system is hopelessly gridlocked with old ideas, Future Perfect makes the timely and uplifting case that progress is still possible.

Combining the deft social analysis of Where Good Ideas Come From with the optimistic arguments of Everything Bad Is Good For You, New York Times bestselling author Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview -- influenced by the success and interconnectedness of the Internet, but not dependent on high-tech solutions -- that breaks with the conventional categories of liberal or conservative thinking. With his acclaimed gift for multi-disciplinary storytelling and big ideas, Johnson explores this new vision of progress through a series of fascinating narratives: from the “miracle on the Hudson” to the planning of the French railway system; from the battle against malnutrition in Vietnam to a mysterious outbreak of strange smells in downtown Manhattan; from underground music video artists to the invention of the Internet itself. At a time when the conventional wisdom holds that the political system is hopelessly gridlocked with old ideas, Future Perfect makes the timely and inspiring case that progress is still possible, and that new solutions are on the rise. This is a hopeful, affirmative outlook for the future, from one of the most brilliant and inspiring visionaries of contemporary culture.

This is the Steven Johnson book we have all been waiting for—the book in which Steven brings together the ideas behind his last few books with his burgeoning career as a media guru (and entrepreneur) to address an urgent and universal question: Where does the flash of brilliance come from? How do we generate the great ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, our culture forward? What do we need to know, and what kind of environment do we need to foster, to come up with these ideas ourselves? These are questions we want answered, and not only does Steven have answers we want to hear, but he presents them in the dazzling and infectious style we have come to expect from him, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to urban studies to the future of the Internet to provide the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of where great ideas come from. Johnson’s story begins with Charles Darwin’s first encounter with a coral reef in a conspicuously clear blue sea. It would become known as Darwin’s Paradox: How does this diverse ecosystem thrive in such an inauspicious (nutrient-sparse) location—in apparent violation of natural laws? Next, Steven introduces us to another natural law, Klieber’s Law, one of those beautiful equations that links all life on earth, from bacteria to hippopotami to human cities: as organisms grow in size, their metabolism slows by a specific and predictable amount. But recently scientists at the Santa Fe Institute discovered one anomaly: in modern super-cities, as they grow, they produce ideas more quickly. Finally, Steven presents one last immutable law, the 10/10 rule of communication technology: it takes ten years to build a new platform, and ten years for it to find a mass audience—it applies across the board, from AM radio to the VCR to HDTV. Here, the notable exception is the Web, which has taken the 10/10 rule and made it 1/1. Clearly, there is something fundamentally different going on in these three examples, something that courses through natural history up through metropolises and the Internet, something that fosters innovation, something that triggers the creative sparks that lead to great ideas. What is it? In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of great ideas. He traces them across time and disciplines, from FBI agents tracking terrorists to scientists figuring out nature’s riddles to Gutenberg borrowing a wine-press to print the first books to Larry and Sergey founding Google on a hunch and a formula. Steven proves that the relevant question is not, How did those guys get so clever? What we need to ask is this: What kind of environment fosters the development of these kinds of ideas? The answers can be surprising—it’s time to give up on the scholar’s isolated ivory tower—but are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring.