Recommended Reads:
What
Scientists Think
Jeremy
Stangroom, co-editor of The Philosopher's Magazine, sits down
with twelve of today's leading scientists and chats with them
about what they've been doing and what it might mean. Stangroom's
tone is engaging and accessible so the lively discussions investigating
issues in neuroscience, climate change, cancer research and evolution
would be enough, on their own, to warrant a recommendation. (Readers
will find cogent scientific opinions that cut through current
media hype on topics like GM food, animal experimentation, Intelligent
Design and stem cell research.) .
Lightness:
The Inevitable Renaissance of Minimum Energy Structures
This
is an extraordinary look at the effect that the lightness
of material has on construction, and how super-light materials
can, will and must reinvent the way objects and structures are
created. The natural world, and the ancient human world, are filled
with elegant examples of engineering with lightweight materials
- solutions that we are only now rediscovering.
Written
by Adriaan Beukkers of Delft Unveristy's Laboratory of Structures
and Materials of the Faculty of Aerospace Technology, Lightness
is full of terrific design inspirations, from Zen archers
to Kazakh yurts.
Rapture:
How Biotech Became The New Religion
Biotech
has certainly generated considerable interest from venture capitalists,
bioethicists and the medical establishment, but it's also generated
several near-cult-like movements.
Collectively known as the transhumanists, these acolytes of pharacogenomics,
cryonics, bionics, medical nanotech, artificial intelligence and
the like look to the technology not only to improve, but transform
and transcend human life as we know it. (Some of their more famous
gurus, like Ray Kurzweil, are actively planning for a date in
the next decade or two when such technology will enable them to
live forever.) In this important and entertaining guide to the
transhumanists, Wired contributor Brian Alexander explores the
movement and its structural similarities to other systems of faith.
Highly recommended!
The
Culture of Defeat:On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery
The
Culture of Defeat is the most timely and relevant book I've read
in the last year. Wolfgang Schivelbusch's extraordinary treatise
on societies' psychological responses to being defeated in war
is brilliant, and has done more to add to my understanding of
the current situation in post-Saddam Iraq than any other work.
This is a must-read.
Futuro:
Tomorrow´s House from Yesterday
The
Futuro house designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen
was first introduced in 1968.
Its flying-saucer-like, ultra-mod elliptical shape still retains
its appeal even today, reflecting the space-age optimism of the
sixties and a utopian vision of "a new stance for tomorrow".
This book edited by Marko Home and Mika Taanila is a detailed
history of the Futuro as well as a journey into our recent futuristic
past. More on the charmingly retro Futuro house can be seen here.
(This book is only available directly from the publisher in Finland.)
The
Penguin State of the World Atlas (7th Ed.)
Dan
Smith, who has been the director of the International Peace Research
Institute, Oslo (PRIO), and chairman of the board for the Institute
for War & Peace Reporting, in London, assembles this terrific
visual guide to the current state of the world.
In
beautifully designed spreads that bring abstract statistics to
life, the Atlas covers such subjects as The Rise of Globalization,
Control of the Seas, Control of Space, Population Growth, Urbanization,
Traffic, Energy Use, Global Warming, Biodiversity, Stock Markets,
Human Rights, Children's Rights, The Internet and Digital Media,
Global Investment and Health and Disease.
The
Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails
Everywhere Else
Peruvian
economist Hernando DeSoto, who leads the Institute for Liberty
and Democracy, (the 'second-most important think-tank in the world',
according to The Economist) has crafted an extremely
compelling account of why capitalism fails in places like the
former Soviet Union and broad swathes of the developing world,
but succeeds in the developed West.
In
DeSoto's view, these unerperforming societies don't lack for either
motivation or for raw resources. Rather, they lack the complex
system that allows tangible assets - like homes - to be turned
into abstract forms of working capital. Without a system of deeds,
mortgages, etc. the impoverished citizen of Manila or Sao Paolo
can't unlock the value of their otherwise 'dead' capital.
The
process by which the West installs free market reforms in these
courntries doesn't really address this glaring hole. As a result,
Capitalism's deeper promise doesn't penetrate to the extent that
it could, instead remaining concentrated at the very top of these
countries' socioeconomic pyramid.
DeSoto's
book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the modern
dynamics of global capitalism.
The
Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking
Commerce, Culture and Consciousness
Over
the course of the last ten years, design has undergone an profound
economic and cultural renaissance. After years of producing ugly,
'merely' functional products, modern industry has begun to awaken
to the power of aesthetics - witness the iPod, the Cooper Mini,
and Michael Graves housewares in the aisles of your local Target.
Powered by new technologies and a recognition that design is a
powerful business differentiator, we've experienced a tremendous
flowering of aesthetic forms and choices.
Lots
of critics suggest that this great multiplication of forms is
wasteful, decadent, or superficial, but author Virginia Postrel
provides a very compelling defense of the aesthetic economy, with
lots of engaging prose and examples. She untangles the complex
forces that have underwritten design's rebirth. And she suggests
that we can find not only pleasure in style, but deep meaning
as well.
This
is as cogent and compelling an exploration of design as I have
ever read. Everyone, (and especially designers) who want to understand
the rise of the Age of Aesthetics should have a copy of this book
on their shelf.
The
New Everyday
Emile
Aarts and Stefano Marzano of Philips Design have put together
the most cogent and deep exploration of ambient intelligence (the
embedding of computing and communications capability into everyday
objects) yet written. This book is a MUST HAVE for interactions
designers who want to prepare for the coming world of ubiquitous
computing.
A
New Deal for New York
In
the wake of the September 11th attacks, New York historian Wallace
argues that we not just rebuild and memorialize the World Trade
Center site, but rethink and plan more broadly for the entire
city’s future. Wallace will be well-known to anyone who saw
Ric Burn's masterful documentary New York on PBS, in which
he featured prominently.
He
tells the fascinating and largely-unknown history of the financial
center, exploding myths about the city’s success in recent
years. He summarizes a wide variety of ambitious but viable projects
to improve all of New York by launching what he calls “the
new New Deal”—a multipronged plan that, mindful of both
the successes and disappointments of the original New Deal of
the 1930s, would feature such longed-for improvements as a revitalized
port, improved mass transit, and more affordable housing. In short,
he argues, September 11th has provided us an “opening, as
a city, to make our own course corrections on the river of history—if
we have the desire, if we can summon the will. Happily, there
are substantial grounds for believing that, under the press of
hard blows and hard times, our audacious metropolis will again
lead the nation in recalling our history, reimagining our future,
and seizing hold of our collective destiny.”
Small
Worlds:The Dynamics of Networks Between Order and Randomness
In
the last few years, social network theory has emerged from the
soup of complexity science, chaos theory, chaordic systems analysis
and computational sociology. One of the hallmarks of this area
is the so-called "small world" phenomenon (better known
to us as the "six degrees of separation") that link
just about everybody somehow.
This
book is dense, and heavy with mathematical modelling, but it does
a terrific job exploring the implications of the small world phenomenon.
Soon:
The Brands of Tomorrow
This
terrific book, (available only from Amazon UK) imagines the brands
of the future, and how we might interact with them. After researching
demographic, cultural, technological,and consumer trends, designers
created new visions of how we might buy.
Linked:
The New Science of Networks
Consider
this The Tipping Point for networks - an accessible guide
to the complex science of networks and the way they impact virtually
every part of our lives. This is a terrific, often quite funny
book that is a good "on ramp" to understanding the basics
of network theory- and will help make more advanced volumes more
understandable.
Twenty
Ads That Shook the World
James
Twichell is perhaps one of American culture's most underrated
critics. This very readable history of the development of advertising
is also a profound social commentary. By looking at the story-behind-the-story
of everything from P.T. Barnum to the Volkswagen Beetle, Twitchell
provides a real look into the forces that shaped American society
over a century.
Economic
Alternatives to Globalization:
Written
by a premier group of thinkers from around the world, Alternatives
to Economic Globalization is a watershed in the antiglobalization
movement. While I disagree with many of the conclusions, this
is extremely though-provoking and a must-read for anyone who wants
to understand globalization and its discontents.
Our
Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics, and
Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World
Douglas Mulhall provides an accessible guide to importnat emerging
technologies for the 21st century. This is an excellent guide
for anyone interested in understanding the future directions of
the current state of the art.
Skin:
Surface, Substance, and Design
Skin
is the catalog book for a marvelous museum exhibition of
the same name, edited by curatorial genius Ellen Lupton. The book
presents products, furniture, fashion, architecture, and media
that are expanding the limits of what we understand as surface.
Reflecting the convergence of natural and artificial life, this
provocative and stimulating book shows how enhanced and simulated
skins appear everywhere in our contemporary world.
Panarchy:
Understanding Transformation in Human and Natural Systems
Gunderson
and Holling's work combines economic, environmental and systems
theory to help us understand complex change.
Cradle
to Cradle
McDonough
and Braungart's revolutionary treatise on sustainability transcends
'environmentalism' as usually described. A hopeful, illuminating
and inspiring book.
Tomorrow
Now
Bruce
Sterling is one of the world's best science fiction writers. Tomorrow
Now is his take on envisioning the next fify years. Sterling can
be a bit of a downer - he needs to be read in the right mood -
but he's wickedly smart and always entertaining.
The
End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression
Some
scholars see globalization as inevitable and irreversible, whereas
others point out that even open and highly integrated international
communities have dissolved in the past. Princeton history professor
Harold James investigates the last great age of globalism, which
was destroyed by the Great Depression and political upheaval in
the 1930s, to put the debate in historical perspective. He comes
to some startling, and compelling conclusions about the present
and future of globalization.
