Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter the Most

Description

Plenty of books offer useful advice on how to get better at making quick-thinking, intuitive choices. But what about more consequential decisions, the ones that affect our lives for years, or centuries, to come? Our most powerful stories revolve around these kinds of decisions: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war. Full of the beautifully crafted storytelling and novel insights that Steven Johnson's fans know to expect, FARSIGHTED draws lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, environmental planning, and great works of literature. Everyone thinks we are living in an age of short attention spans, but we've actually learned a lot about making long-term decisions over the past few decades. Johnson makes a compelling case for a smarter and more deliberative decision-making approach. He argues that we choose better when we break out of the myopia of single-scale thinking and develop methods for considering all the factors involved. There's no one-size-fits-all model for the important decisions that can alter the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization. But FARSIGHTED explains how we can approach these choices more effectively, and how we can appreciate the subtle intelligence of choices that shaped our broader social history.

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of eleven books, including Wonderland, How We Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map and Everything Bad Is Good for You. The founder of a variety of influential websites, he is the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. Johnson lives in Marin County, California, and Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons. StevenBerlinJohnson.com @StevenBJohnson

**PRAISE FOR STEVEN JOHNSON - * Johnson's erudition can be quite gobsmacking - Wall Street Journal A great science writer - Bill Clinton A first-rate storyteller - The New York Times A maven of the history of ideas - Guardian