Review by Choice Review
Schmidt (executive chair and former CEO, Google) and Cohen (director, Google Ideas; Council on Foreign Relations) provide a compelling view of the world in which the digitized virtual realm is as real and critical as the flesh-and-blood, bricks-and-mortar, and rocks-and-trees physical realm. The presentation covers a broad range of technology and civic affairs. The primary technological focus is on the transformative role of ubiquitous and affordable personal communication devices. The authors lay out the implications of extreme connectivity against themes of individual and group privacy; revolutions against tyrannical states; terrorist threats and countermeasures; international conflicts; and reconstruction following conflicts. The presentation is a coherent and compelling narrative backed by 40 pages of source citations. The book is neither prescriptive nor fatalistic. Schmidt and Cohen emphasize that global social structures are undergoing unprecedented changes, and that decisions must be made that will affect both the trajectory and end points of those changes across the globe. They make clear just how critical, and potentially devastating, decisions about the use of technology will be as society progresses more deeply into the digital era. Citizens and policy makers alike will benefit from the presentation. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. C. Vickery Queens College of CUNY
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
If prominence correlates with the attention paid to a prognosticator, there will be great interest in the outlook for the Internet, according to Google executive Schmidt. With Cohen, Schmidt addresses incipient trends in an individual's engagement with the Internet to introduce his main subject, how nation-states and businesses will capitalize or cope with the velocity, connectivity, and mutation of the Internet. In the authors' analysis, governments and companies face in the virtual world, as they have in the physical world, an intelligence challenge. Referencing Internet incidents galore, they warn of a perpetual code war between attackers and defenders and expand upon this type of conflict within authoritarian and democratic states. Citing the Arab Spring as an example, Schmidt and Cohen predict that its online propagation presages an easier initiation of future revolutions, which nevertheless face uncertain outcomes when they encounter, as they eventually must, the material powers of a state. Peering forward to the Internet's influence on international affairs, this work of futurology combines optimism and pessimism in an informed and levelheaded presentation.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This transformational work from Google's Schmidt and Cohen examines the boundaries of the physical world we currently inhabit and offers a vision into our digital future: a world where everyone is connected, and what it means for people, nations, and businesses. Global connectivity can help generate more jobs in internet security and intellectual property and privacy law, while offering visible figures access to media outlets for self-promotion. Schmidt and Cohen address global connectivity and the relationships between invasion of privacy and government's control over people's private information; such connectivity opens doors to identity theft and increases the risk for cyber warfare. Societies will be at risk of fragmentation, facing ethnic and religious strife, as well as trouble emerging from online communities. The possibility of cyber terrorism and cyberwarfare will increase the likelihood of "new code wars" in which silent attacks are inevitable. Schmidt and Cohen outline plans to reconstruct societies and offer ideas for innovative policies that may allow societies to recover quickly. Technology connects us all, but as we become more dependent on it, will it eliminate physical human contact altogether? (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two Google executives examine how emerging technologies will change the future of foreign affairs. "Forget all the talk about machines taking over," write Schmidt and Cohen (Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East, 2007, etc.). "What happens in the future is up to us." The pair met in Baghdad in 2009 while working on a memo for the State Department. While there, they found that Iraqis not only valued technology, they believed in its potential to improve their lives and their country. With that in mind, the authors look at our increasingly networked world and speculate on what new global connections could bring, particularly as it will change foreign affairs in a future that "will be more personal and participatory than we can even imagine." The authors encapsulate a vast sweep of ideas, including personal citizenship online and off, censorship of electronic information as national policy (e.g., in China), and even what future revolutions (similar to the Arab Spring) will look like in years to come. The ability of technology to change the world for the better sometimes comes across as either excessively optimistic or bordering on science fiction. In one passage, the authors surmise that witch doctors, false holy men and procurers of child brides could all soon change their ways, since "[w]ith more data, everyone gains a better frame of reference." Conversely, the chapter on the future of terrorism is especially chilling, offering such possibilities as mobile explosive devices made from parts easily bought online or a well-coordinated, simultaneous bomb explosion in multiple American cities, followed by cyberattacks to cripple emergency services. The likelihood that technology could create a future that is both better and worse, in different ways, is probably the book's most accurate prediction. A thoughtful and well-balanced prognostication of what lies ahead.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review