Virginia Postrel - The Future and Its Enemies

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES

Virginia Postrel is stirring it up arousing praise and criticism across the country.

Arthur Hirsch, The Baltimore Sun

Postrels 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.

John Derbyshire, National Review

The strength of The Future and Its Enemies lies in the authors passionate belief in the inherent virtue in creativity, innovation, and competition.

Anthony Day, Los Angeles Times

It is a fervent partisan statement, an unabashedly dynamist work. Postrels 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.

James W. Ceaser, The Weekly Standard

In industrial America, centralized bureaucracies believed they could identify and impose what 1910s 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.

Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report

If theres a better book published during the past few years, I dont know of it. With this book, Virginia Postrel takes her place along side Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand as the 20th centurys greatest heroines of liberty Like the philosophy she advocates, her book is dynamic.

Don Boudreaux, President of the Foundation for Economic Education

Her message is a bracing one.

David Boldt, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Read this superb book.

George C. Leef, The Detroit News

A thought-provoking look at an important subject.

Library Journal

Virginia Postrel smashes conventional political boundaries in this libertarian manifesto The Future and Its Enemies is at once intellectually sweeping and readerfriendly; 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

Virginia Postrel, the brilliant editor of Reason magazine does an excellent job of cutting through some of the most troublesome aspects of liberal-conservative conflict.

Joseph J. Jacobs, Los Angeles Daily News

Postrel provides some important food for thought for those seeking to encourage creativity and innovation in their workplace.

Teresa McUsic, The San Diego-Union Tribune

A terrific book Keep your eyes and Amazon.com account open for The Future and Its Enemies.

Richard Karlgaard, Forbes

Virginia Postrel has launched a national debate over how to face the next millenium.

Hank Honman, New Haven Advocate

Postrels book breaks ground with a piercing analysis [she] offers an impassioned case for dynamism.

Steven Greenhut, The Orange County Register

Thought provoking Postrels arguments have special relevance in dynamic Silicon Valley, a garden of capitalist creativity and creative destruction.

Joanne Jacobs, San Jose Mercury News

Challenging and entertaining Postrel lyrically invok[es] her vision.

Phil Leggiere, Upside

Astute

Mark Williams, The Red Herring Magazine

Provocative [a] defense of the free society, the free market, and even the free person.

Kirkus Reviews

This is Postrels dynamist manifesto An offbeat treatise for serious politicos.

Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

Postrel [is] the talented and provocative editor of Reason magazine.

Fast Company

A reasoned and passionate argument.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, Inc.

Virginia Postrel [is] one of Americas true original thinkers.

Larry Cohen, Hartford Courant

Virginia Postrels insight that people divide naturally into stasists and dynamists is important and remarkably practical. If you care about innovation, youll want to know whos who in your next meeting.

Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com

Postrels brilliant, amusing, readable book is about the future, but listens to the past. Unlike the stasists she so elegantly skewers, shes actually read the history. She listens to the story of philosophy and fashion, economics and the environment, and finds that Chicken Little has been wrong every time.

Deirdre McCloskey, John F. Murray Professor of Economics and Professor of History, University of Iowa, and past President of the Economic Hisory Association

Bravo!a well written, quietly revolutionary work.

Gregory Benford, Professor of Physics, University of California, Irvine, and author of Time Scape

Cassandra beware! Virginia Postrel skewers the pessimists of both the left and the right who see technology as the enemy and nostalgia as their friend. Bubbling with enthusiasm, and fortified with examples that run from computers to shampoo, she exposes those whose futile efforts to dictate the future pose the greatest threat to progress and security alike.

Richard Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago Law School and author of Simple Rules for a Complex World

Showing both an acute eye for the thick textures of social life and a deep understanding of competing strands of current social theory, Virginia Postrel accomplishes here one of the social theorists hardest tasks: devising new ways to make sense of large amounts of otherwise unconnected, or inexplicable, information about the social and political world It is a large achievement.

David Post, co-director of the Cyberspace Law Institute and Associate Professor at Temple University Law School

Theres a lot of provocative material in Postrels book.

David Futrelle, Newsday

A powerful new book that will define the next decade as George Gilders Wealth and Poverty defined the 1980s.

Grover Norquist, Spin Tech

An excellent book clearly written, well argued, and broadly sourced.

Neal Lipschutz, BookPage

I highly recommend {The Future and Its Enemies}. Postrel explains much of todays conflict in the evolution of cultureThe Culture Warwith a new dichotomy Stasists want us to decide centrally Dynamists want a thousand flowers to bloom and freedom to choose. The Internet is, I gather, for dynamists, like me.

Bob Metcalfe, Infoworld

Virginia Postrels book is going to be widely read and then widely discussed and debated. I know I bought a copy for my CEO.

Fred Nickols, Journal of Management Consulting

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, columnist for The Washington Post

What to say? Magisterial! Encompassing! Crystal clear, plain English! The best damn nonfiction Ive read in years! Uncategorizable which is the point. I have been liberated by this book, and my hands literally shook as I readword for wordevery page! Few will not be offended by something Ms. Postrel has to say to which I say, Hurrah!

Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence

In this bold and compelling book, Virginia Postrel uses a breathtaking range of examples, from music to software to hairstyling, to argue that progress comes not from a master plan but from courage, experiment and even playfulness. She makes you look again at what you thought you already knew.

Esther Dyson, Chairman of EDventure Holdings and author of