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As all of us are showered with bright promises
about the new electronic frontier -- one of unalloyed and
revolutionary opportunities -- this book offers a more sober,
alternative perspective. It portrays a 'wired' world of
economic growth without jobs or security; a realm of 'connections'
without communication; a frontier without citizens -- only
consumers.
Cybertrends trains a critical eye
on the hard-headed economic realities that are propelling
the world further along a socially and ecologically hazardous
path -- one on which powerful new tools are being used to
project an expansionary and unimproved dream.
In this controversial book David Brown contrasts
the myths with the emerging realities of the information
age. He shows how informational networking is eroding traditional
centres of power -- and presenting a convincing illusion
of creative anarchy -- while at the same time it is steadily
and quietly giving rise to potentially dangerous new concentrations
of commercial power which are built around hubs of silicon
and code. He spotlights the personalities behind this so-called
'revolution,' and identifies their key role in a technocentric
and global overlay culture that is increasingly unaccountable
to the fragmented democratic constituencies they are leaving
behind.
Written in a lively and accessible style,
Cybertrends is a call to arms that shows how the
information revolution can be recaptured and made to serve
a higher ideal.
David Brown is a US writer of mixed Native
American Indian, Sicilian and Anglo-Saxon descent who now
lives in Western Europe. He has travelled widely in Asia,
Central and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas.
A graduate of Columbia University in New York, he was briefly
a speech writer and congressional aide on the Washington
political scene before turning to full-time reporting in
1980. As a correspondent for the Financial Times
and the International Herald Tribune, and as European
contributing editor of Business magazine, his journalism
has been widely syndicated. This is his first book.
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