Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human

Taking us behind the scenes with today's foremost researchers and pioneers, bestselling author Joel Garreau shows that we are at a turning point in history. At this moment we are engineering the next stage of human evolution. Through advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny-and perhaps our very souls. Radical Evolution reveals that the powers of our comic-book superheroes already exist, or are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the country-from the revved-up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species. Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear in this New York Times Book Club premiere selection, these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven-where technology's promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness, and extend our lives is the answer to our prayers? Or, as some argue, to hell-where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our species?

About the Author :
JOEL GARREAU is a student of culture, values and change. The author of the bestselling Edge City: Life on the New Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America, he is a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, a member of the scenario-planning organization Global Business Network, and has served as a senior fellow at George Mason University and the University of California at Berkeley. He has appeared on such national media as Good Morning America, Today, The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, NBC Nightly News, ABC’s World News Tonight, and NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He lives in Broad Run, Virginia.

Review :
Advance praise for RADICAL EVOLUTION “An eye-opening exploration of how cutting-edge 21st-century technologies, in embryonic form right now, pose the stark alternatives of a real life Utopia or Brave New World… Garreau has an eye for the anecdote that throws much of this Buck Rogers technology into compelling human terms… Excellent scientific journalism on the challenges arising from a real tipping point in human relations.” ­ Kirkus (Starred Review) “How weird, how soon? That’s the question that dominates the debates about the coming of ‘post-humanity.’ With his customary journalistic acumen and wry humor, Garreau has the answer: much weirder than you imagine, much sooner than you expect.” — Stewart Brand, author of The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility and The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T. “Joel Garreau lives well ahead of the curve — even the really big Curve he describes in these pages. One of our foremost chroniclers of change and historians of the future, he’s done it again.” — Bill McKibben, author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and The End of Nature “Joel Garreau has hit upon something critical here, something most of us see daily and struggle to make sense of: That human technology may be advancing faster than our ability to adapt, leaving us ill-equipped to measure and manage the consequences. This is a timely, important book, and a fascinating read.” — Nathan McCall, author of Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America “It isn't often an author gets to herald the biggest news in the last 10,000 years. But you'll get the full, uncensored, mind-blowing report here in this entertaining and surprisingly deep book.” - Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control and Wired editor-at-large “Radical Evolution" is truly outstanding. I was hooked. It reads like a thriller, informs like a textbook, engages like a love note. Garreau is, truly, an artist.” - Eamonn Kelly, co-author, What's Next: Exploring the New Terrain for Business