Short Take |
THE NEW MEGATRENDS: SEEING CLEARLY IN THE AGE OF DISRUPTION
By
Published: Apr 30, 2022
Ethics prevent me from reviewing this book — it was my honor to brainstorm with veteran trendspotter Marian Salzman in its creation, as I have on several of her previous books. I can say that trends have the lifespan of fruit flies now; it’s her genius to identify and explain ones that might affect more than this week. In these pages, she explains the most consequential shifts underway: “our warming planet, pervasive forces of chaos and uncertainty, and the evolving battle for supremacy between the world’s two 21st-century superpowers, the United States and China.” Even more valuable, she digs into the forces shaping how we live. As she writes, they include “the blurring and resetting of boundaries; the value of small in a world undergoing massive change; the new luxury of freedom and time; the massive shifts in gender norms and expectations and the move toward individualism…. While this book is intended to decode the myriad political, cultural, environmental, and technological trends that will influence our tomorrow, I regard it less as a forecast than as a call to action. Some four centuries ago, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes declared, ‘Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.’” Marian Salzman is definitely prepared. Consider joining her. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here. For the audiobook, click here.]
