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Steven Johnson - Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age

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Harvard Book Store
Date and time
Friday, September 28, 2012

Steven Johnson discusses his new book,"Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age," presented by Harvard Book Store. The author of "Where Good Ideas Come From," and "Everything Bad Is Good For You," Johnson argues here 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 class of organization, which he calls a "peer network" -- interconnected webs of individuals that accomplish tasks and solve problems, sometimes over long periods of time. While they may interact with businesses, organizations, or governments, they are a distinct type of social structure that doesn't neatly fit with liberal or conservative economic and governmental models.

Steven Johnson
Steven Johnson is a contributing editor at Wired magazine and has published pieces in Discover, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Nation. He is well known as an advocate for the educational value of television and computer games, and he is the bestselling author of six books, including The Invention of Air, Everything Bad is Good For You, Mind Wide Open, and Interface Culture, all of which examine the intersection of science, technology, and the human experience. Publisher’s Weekly named his book The Ghost Map, which details London’s devastating 1854 cholera epidemic, one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2006. Johnson has appeared on numerous prime time television programs, including “The Charlie Rose Show,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” He has been called “a polymath” (Los Angeles Times) and “an infectiously exciting writer” (Salon.com). His new book is Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.
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