Is global capitalism on its last legs? Is the era of American leadership over? Has the West begun a decline into a new Dark Age? Does American civilisation deserve to survive? These are the unnerving questions raised by the Great Crash of 2009. Visionary thinker Howard Bloom has a radically new answer. In this book Bloom insists that global society has only begun to realise its full potential. Bloom argues that there's a hidden mandate beneath the surface of capitalism: 'It's struggling to whisper and rumble its message to you and me. That hidden imperative can lift us from economic crisis, can make us a leader in the next-generation economy, and can dramatically upgrade our ability to empower our fellow human beings.' Bloom sees crisis as opportunity, opportunity for the whole human race. In over eighty short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs. "The Genius of the Beast" takes the reader on a sweeping tour of human history, from the Stone Age to the present. Every chapter conveys a radically new way to see the astonishing mechanism we call 'Western Civilisation'. Bloom marvels at how humans have turned toxic waste into food and fuel, trash into treasure, and garbage into gold. He shows how we have produced material miracles based on immaterial things - passion, persistence, and fantasy. Bloom shows that what many regard as the end is just the beginning. The beginning of something you've never before imagined. Bloom explains why the secret to capitalism's next great leap does not lie in new financial tricks, but in tapping things right under our noses in radically new ways - that is, tapping our imagination, our desire to feel useful, our desire to help others, and our desire to be recognised for contributing to the welfare of humanity. The key to next-generation capitalism, writes Bloom, lies in a big-picture view that's utterly unlike anything you've previously perceived. A big-picture view that will startle you. A big-picture view with which you can ignite the world, get a new handle on your life, and help to transform society. This brilliant, inspirational work of daring ideas and breath-taking research offers more than hope. It offers unseen levels of understanding. Understanding that can literally redefine what it means to he a human being.
Howard Bloom has been called "the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the twenty-first century" and "the next Stephen Hawking." He is the author of two acclaimed books, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. Those books have won praise from the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Wired, Foreign Affairs, and numerous other publications. A recent visiting scholar at New York University, Bloom is the founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, founder of the Space Development Steering Committee (a group that includes Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell) and founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society. He has appeared on Good Morning America, the CBS Morning News, CBS Nightwatch, the BBC, and over one hundred other media outlets.
"Howard Bloom is an exceptional scientific writer. Though he does not have the variety of university degrees behind which historians, anthropologists and sociologists usually hide, he demonstrates two of the most basic qualities of the scientific spirit in the highest degree. He pushes himself to discover the mistakes hidden in things that are considered obvious truths. And to do it he uses the greatest range of scientific insights available, no matter what disciplinary barriers separate them. For that, he puts to work a creative imagination far outside the ordinary, the kind that belongs to the great discoverers. He apparently joins all that to an exceptional capacity for work, the kind without which nothing solid can be laid in place." -- Les Automates Intelligents, October 29, 2009
