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Praise
for:
THE END OF PATIENCE
More notes of caution on the information revolution
by David Shenk
“With equal measures of plain old common sense and
uniquely gifted insight, David Shenk is the ideal guide
through today's head-on collision of culture and technology.
Following up on the success of Data Smog, Shenk
may understand the Information Age better than anyone
else: he sees benefits and perils that everybody else
seems too rushed to notice, and I predict that the ‘notes
of caution’ he sounds in The End of Patience
will be remembered by future generations for their prophetic
accuracy. As you read, you’ll find yourself crying
out in astonishment and complete agreement. If you feel
overwhelmed by ‘too much information,’ you’re
right — and you need this book.”
— Dan Rather
“An important book . . . Shenk offers something
unique and valuable to a culture shell-shocked by the
speed and fragmentation of communications and language
in the Digital Age.”
— Jon Katz
“Finally, tech-crit for technophiles! Some philanthropist
should buy a copy of ‘The End of Patience’
for every graduating engineering student. Shenk is a technology
critic who knows and appreciates technology, but who learned
to see what most modern citizens are conditioned to ignore
— the shadows, the pitfalls, the hidden costs of
technologies. The world needs to learn how to think about
technology in new ways. While others look at the power
or the wealth promised by new inventions, Shenk asks the
most important question: Where is the human in all this?”
— Howard Rheingold
“David Shenk looks at the new face of our world
with a curiosity and connection-making responsiveness
that make him exhilarating to read. These are bits, takes,
provisional sweeps at issues still coming into focus,
but taken together they give us a startling glimpse of
where we are. Shenk is so close to the present that most
readers will mistake it for the future.”
— Sven Birkerts
“If the world of constant, instantaneous communication
makes you a little nervous from time to time, David Shenk
can explain why. This book is a very useful antidote to
the endless praise lavished on the new electronic mediums.
Read it slowly!”
— Bill McKibben
“Shenk [is] a technology critic with a knack for
unraveling the complex....his writing has a sure, light
touch that glides past the bombast of classic technopunditry.
Happily, Shenk follows his own prescriptions, cutting
through the information haze rather than adding to it.”
— Amazon.com
“Shenk, author of the celebrated Data Smog,
articulates further uneasiness with the information age
in this collection of provocative punditry....Shenk’s
sentences are witty, often savagely funny. These essays,
many of which are shorter than three pages, are entertaining,
even if, in their brevity, they do not demand the patience
that Shenk argues is such a virtue.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Mostly fascinating and always insightful, this
shows us both the promise and the pitfalls of new technology
and how it affects us all.”
— Kirkus Reviews |
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