Synopses & Reviews
There has never been a shortage of pundits willing to wax hyperbolic about the wonders of the digital age. Readers looking for a more thoughtful and balanced perspective, however, have discovered that there is only one reliable source. Since 1996, Forbes ASAP's annual Big Issue has offered reflections and musings on the digital revolution from some of the world's best-known writers, thinkers, and leaders.
Big Issues: The Examined Life in the Digital Age celebrates the first five years of "Big Issues" in a single, thought-provoking package. It features penetrating insights, offbeat takes, and timely observations from a diverse group of contributors who examine the impact of digital technology on our society, our culture, and ourselves.
William F. Buckley Jr. explains how he became a digital true believer, and Joe Queenan relives the perils of writing an online novel. Tom Wolfe anticipates technological innovations that may change our lives even more profoundly than universal connectivity, and Chuck Yeager examines the relationship between speed and time.
Big Issues is full of many surprises, such as Muhammad Ali's discourse on convergence and Web founder Tim Berners-Lee's warning about the immense impact of seemingly small decisions. Screw magazine's Al Goldstein airs his misgivings about cybersex, and Bill Gates reveals some of the things that Microsoft does not do well.
You'll also hear from some of America's finest novelists, including John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Pat Conroy, and many more. Elmore Leonard addresses the issue of truth in the digital age by creating a fictional character based on a newspaper story, and playwright Arthur Miller explains the need to endlessly reexamine things that we are absolutely certain are beyond possibility.
Profound, provocative, and often whimsical, Big Issues is the thinking person's guide to understanding and coping with the endless challenges of our constantly morphing digital culture.
Synopsis
Praise for Forbes ASAP and its big issues
"I enjoy reading and writing for Forbes ASAP more than any other magazine. Best of all, it's full of new ideas."-Stephen Ambrose, historian, author of Nothing Like It in the World
"Forbes ASAP is without question the foremost instrument of speculation into and intelligence of the 'digital culture,' riding it like a rocket."-Mark Helprin, author of A City in Winter
"I couldn't put off any longer writing about your sensational issue. It is unbelievably rich and I'm not even through with it."-William F. Buckley Jr., author, founder of National Review
"Forbes ASAP's Big Issue is a Big Deal! It's about the only thing I read-literally cover to cover (then save!). It's one of magazine publishing's annual main events."-Tom Peters, management expert, author of In Search of Excellence
Synopsis
The nation's leading opinion makers converge to address technology and its impact on society and business
The Forbes ASAP annual Big Issue is the most important magazine special in all of high technology. It has been hailed as "the last great bastion of the essay" by author Stanley Crouch. It is historian Stephen Ambrose's favorite publication to write for, and Tom Wolfe has made it the home for more of his original essays than any other publication in the last decade. Each of the five Big Issues has tackled a burning social question as it relates to technology, including the new meaning of work, the changing nature of time in the digital age, the great convergence (work/play, public/private, science/religion), and what is true. And each issue brings together the best writers and thinkers in search of answers. Big Issue contributors have come from business (Bill Gates, Andrew Grove), science (E. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould), literature (John Updike, Reynolds Price, Elmore Leonard), history (John Keegan, Jacques Barzun), politics (Gore Vidal, Peggy Noonan), sports (Muhammad Ali), and religion (the Dalai Lama). Sixty-three of the best essays from the first five Big Issues are complied in this new collection, with an original foreword by longtime Big Issue fan Peter Jennings.
About the Author
FORBES ASAP is the bimonthly technology magazine of Forbes, Inc., and a leading publication of the digital age. With a circulation of 865,000, Forbes ASAP is best known for its annual Big Issue, a compendium of essays by the nation's leading writers and thinkers about the social and philosophical implications of the new digital technology.
Table of Contents
The Implications of the Digital Revolution--"Seers and Sages on the Techno-Future".
At Work in the Digital Age--"Scenes from the New Economy".
Time in the Digital Age.
Convergence in the Digital Age "Everywhere We Look, Things are Flowing Together, Creating New Ways of Seeing the World".
What is True in the Digital Age "What is Real, Lasting, and Enduring in this Age of Radical and Continuous Change?"