Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything
Pantheon, 1999
A bracing account of the accelerating pace of change in today’s world.
Most of us suffer some degree of “hurry sickness.” a malady that has launched us into the “epoch of the nanosecond,” a need-everything-yesterday sphere dominated by cell phones, computers, faxes, and remote controls. Yet for all the hours, minutes, and even seconds being saved, we’re still filling our days to the point that we have no time for such basic human activities as eating, sex, and relating to our families. Written with fresh insight and thorough research, Faster is a wise and witty look at a harried world not likely to slow down anytime soon.
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“In years to come Faster will tell people what we were like as clearly as Dickens or Tom Wolfe.” Patricia Volk, The New York Times
“A book written nearly two decades ago that has not only stood the test of time but has grown all the more perceptive and prescient in the years since.... Gleick’s Faster is immeasurably insightful in its entirety and often strikingly prophetic.” Maria Popova