The Future and Its Enemies
The Growing Conflict of Creativity, Enterprise and Progress
(amazon)Virginia Postrel (View Bio)
Hardcover: The Free Press, 1999; Paperback: The Free Press, 1999.
"Virginia Postrel smashes conventional boundaries in this libertarian manifesto.... The Future and Its Enemies is at once intellectually sweeping and reader-friendly; it has the potential to join a pantheon of books about freedom that include works by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman." — John J. Miller, amazon.com
"Read this superb book." — Detroit News
"Provocative ...[a] defense of the free society, the free market, and even the free person. The old political appellations of 'left' and 'right' no longer carry much meaning; its now more accurate, argues Reason editor Postrel, to see society as divided between those who champion dynamism and others who defend stasis. The old modernist ideal of a single, controllable future has given way to visions far more open, mobile, and unpredictable. Individuals and their associations, unfettered by government or convention, are creating a world of innovation and competition, a world of 'evolved solutions to complex problems.'" — Kirkus Reviews
"Postrel's insight that people divide naturally into stasists and dynamists is important and remarkably practical. If you care about innovation you'll want to know who's who in your next meeting." — Jeff Bezos, C.E.O., Amazon.com
"Postrel's book is both a siren's song and an inspirational text.... 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." — Salon.com
"Postrel's aim is only to provide a defense of adventurous, optimistic attitudes to social and technological change. That she has done very admirably, with passion and vigor." — National Review
"Postrel provides some important food for thought for those seeking to encourage creativity and innovation in their workplace." — San Diego Union Tribune
"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." — The Weekly Standard
"Brilliant. Read this wonderful book! Like no other author of social and political commentary, Virginia Postrel celebrates the texture of modern life and shows us how to love the unknowable future." — James K. Glassman, Washington Post
"[A] pointed and provocative cultural critique." — The Wall Street Journal
