An Optimist's Tour of the Future [Kindle Edition]

Think back over the past few years and think about the books you've read on the current state of the world and/or its fast-approaching fate. Then, when you get back from the pharmacy and take your copious amounts of anti-depressants needed to cope with those books, pick up a copy of An Optimist's Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer "What's Next?" and throw out the pills. Amid all the doom and gloom, here's a blossom of hope. Mind you, Mr. Stevenson is no naïf in rose-colored glasses: he approaches his subjects - among them some of the world's most brilliant people - with an intelligent skepticism, challenges their assumptions and never lets them off the hook when they try to wiggle around the tough questions.

To get a sense of Stevenson's style and approach in this book, think about the motivations behind What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better, combine it with the probing intelligence and never-say-die quest for creative answers behind Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.), then dash in the wit and wisdom of a A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Each section of Stevenson's book covers a specific topic, with subjects ranging from transhumanism to robotics to the environment to genetic engineering (to name but a few). But more interesting still are the people working at the cutting edge of these fields. In each section, we follow Mr. Stevenson around the world as he visits some of these leading minds of our time, visionaries like Ray Kurzweil, George Church and Vint Cerf. Through wit, charm and intelligence, he elicits a level of frankness that you will not witness in any other interview format. (In that sense, the book is worth the price for the biographical components alone.)

I think the biggest selling point of this book, though, is the way it alters the reader's whole way of looking at an exciting future that is so much closer than most of us might think. Stevenson calls it a 'reboot', and that's a very apt descriptor: the reader finishes the book with a sense of awe (and yes, some trepidation) about a future in which everything we have taken for granted for so long, is suddenly washed away in favor of very new definitions of things as fundamental as success, happiness, relationships, even mortality.

So put down the doom and gloom for a while, turn off the 24/7 parade of dismay and pick up this reason to be optimistic. The future is going to be a wild ride, and Stevenson's book is a good road map.

A clearly written, engaging introduction to cutting-edge scientific research in multiple fields that may well change the way we live - for the better. Mark Stevenson explains the innovative approaches that brilliant (and sometimes extreme) scientists are taking in an effort to solve the energy crisis, slow environmental degradation, and prolong our years of good health. The author splits his time between science communication and stand-up comedy, so it's entertaining as well as being right on target.

The book describes an optimistic view as the title said but some very interesting topics showing despite the press it is not all doom and gloom.