Simply put, Johnson credits this slow change to the development of peer networks across the public and private sector, and ties this progress into a broader worldview that looks to distributed peer networks to make social change. In the book, Johnson makes an argument that we live in a world of steady, incremental progress that has steadily made the world a better place, but we as citizens don’t have a good idea of what this progress is or who is responsible because these stories don’t get regularly told or celebrated. In general though, I love the way Johnson approaches his subjects looking for the positive and articulating ways in which we can look at the world as a better place. And I while haven’t read Where Good Ideas Come From, his book about innovation, if it’s anything like these three I know it will be good. In The Ghost Map, Johnson looked at the way radical thinking could change society. His fourth book, Everything Bad is Good For You, is one of my favorite books about popular culture and the benefits of all sorts of high- and low-brow entertainment.

I tend to really like Steven Johnson’s ideas and writing. Future Perfect is an exploration of a political worldview that is deeply optimistic that progress is still possible and that new solutions will emerge as we all learn to work better together. It was also a book that I seemed to read exactly the right time, a book that articulated a new-to-me political philosophy at a moment when the limits of a two party political system were starting to wear me down. Review: It’s embarrassing that it’s taken me this long to write about Future Perfect, which I read almost as soon as it arrived in the mail in September. Title: Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked AgeĪcquired: From the publisher for review consideration

Future Perfect by Steven Johnson