The Great Acceleration

Starred review from April 15, 2016
In the way that almost $1 trillion of stock value disappeared in five minutes during the Flash Crash of 2010, Colville finds a compelling illustration of the perils we face in a world where everything runs at dizzying speed. Those perils extend well beyond Wall Street. Readers see incautious adolescents ruin their reputations in minutes through cyberdistribution of nude photos, movie-industry executives sucked into the sterility of comic-book blockbusters churned out hurriedly, journalists sliding into sensationalism and inaccuracy to meet tight deadlines, and politicians addicted to hyperspeed technologies powerful in campaigning but useless in governing. Perhaps most worrisome are the descriptions of Third World cities rapidly filling with displaced villagers, cities whose demands are swiftly depleting the planet's natural resources. Yet with surprising optimism, Colville affirms his belief that wise use of initially disruptive technologies can protectand actually improvesocial and political relationships, cultural creativity, and even the environment. Looking to a glowing future, Colville even anticipates a time when the rapidity of artificial intelligence will endow the human species with astonishing new powers. Traditionalists aligned with Jacques Ellul or Josef Pieper may find Colville implausibly cheery-minded, even utopian. But anyone worried about our increasingly frenetic lives will find food for thought.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)