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A review by peter__b
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson
2.0
This has a lot less to do with technology and more to do with economics than I was expecting. I'm not a fan of economics, especially the in-depth discussions about it that happen in this book. I frequently found myself dozing off since the content was just so dull. There's definitely some interesting concepts and ideas, most of which I didn't know about, but the amount of depth that was added to each of those was just too much.
The broad concepts were well structured and interesting on their own, but most of the sub-chapters were mostly unnecessary and often times I just felt like I was being bombarded with statistics. This could easily have been half the length and with some proper editing, could have been quite enjoyable even. The focus on American issues was also unnecessary, since the proliferation of technology is not just restricted to the USA.
I think I was mostly disappointed due to having had the expectation that this book would go into the issues the arise from our current trends in technology. Although there is content about it, it's hidden in endless meandering about economics. I suspect people who are more inclined towards economics, would enjoy this more and people who enjoy thinking about statistics and economic theory even more so. However, not being American and not particularly enjoying either of those topics, I was just not the target audience for this particular book.
The broad concepts were well structured and interesting on their own, but most of the sub-chapters were mostly unnecessary and often times I just felt like I was being bombarded with statistics. This could easily have been half the length and with some proper editing, could have been quite enjoyable even. The focus on American issues was also unnecessary, since the proliferation of technology is not just restricted to the USA.
I think I was mostly disappointed due to having had the expectation that this book would go into the issues the arise from our current trends in technology. Although there is content about it, it's hidden in endless meandering about economics. I suspect people who are more inclined towards economics, would enjoy this more and people who enjoy thinking about statistics and economic theory even more so. However, not being American and not particularly enjoying either of those topics, I was just not the target audience for this particular book.