Industrial Society

When an epidemic outbreak occurs, the most physical and financial harm historically falls upon the people who can least afford it: the economically and socially marginalized. Where people live and work, how they commute and socialize, and more have a huge impact on the risks we bear during an outbreak. In The Rich Flee and the Poor Take the Bus, economist Troy Tassier examines examples ranging from the 430 BCE plague of Athens to the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate why marginalized groups bear the largest burden of epidemic costs-and how to avoid these systemic failures in the future.

Rabies enjoys a fearsome and lurid reputation. Throughout the decades of spiraling growth that defined New York City from the 1840s to the 1910s, the bone-chilling cry of "Mad dog!" possessed the power to upend the ordinary routines and rhythms of urban life. In Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers, Jessica Wang examines the history of this rare but dreaded affliction during a time of rapid urbanization.

In the revolutionary excitement of the 1960s, young people around the world called for a radical shift away from the old industrial order, imagining a future of technological liberation and unfettered prosperity. Industrial society did collapse, and a digital economy has risen to take its place, yet many are left feeling marginalized and deprived of the possibility of a better life. The Inglorious Years explores the many ways we have been let down by the rising tide of technology, showing how our new interconnectivity is not fulfilling its promise.

기술 혁신보다 중요한 것은 '일하는 방법'의 혁신이다! 가장 중요하지만 아무도 말하지 않는 4차 산업혁명의 본질과 핵심 인공지능, 플랫폼, 블록체인, 증강현실 등이 어느덧 익숙한 말이 됐다. 그래서인지 많은 이들이 이런 새로운 기술을 알면 4차 산업혁명을 제대로 이해하는 것이라고 생각한다. 누구보다 빠르고 정확하게 변화를 감지해야 하는 비즈니스맨조차 4차 산업혁명을 기술적 측면에서만 바라본다. 그러나 급속히 달라지는 비즈니스 생태계에서 승패를 좌우하는 것은 기술 혁신이 아니다. 4차 산업혁명은 100개의 레고 조각을 가지고 놀다가 갑자기 레고 조각이 1억 개로 늘어난 것과 같다. 이런 상황에서는 '노는 방법'을 완전히 달리해야 한다. 스포츠에 비유하자면 야구를 하던 선수들이 농구 선수로 뛰어야 하는 상황이다. 지금까지 9명이 공을 던지고 받는 연습을 하며 정교한 작전을 짰다면, 이제부터는 5명이 몸싸움을 해가며 순발력을 발휘해야 하는 것이다. 그래서 필요한 것이 바로 '일하는 방법의 혁신'이다. 신생 스타트업에서 '유니콘 기업'으로 성장해 기존의 강자들을 위협하고 있는 몇몇 기업을 살펴보면 '일하는 방법을 완전히 바꿨다'는 공통점이 있다.

From a plague in Athens during the Peloponnesian War in 430 BCE, to another in 540 that wiped out half the population of the Roman empire, down through the Black Death in the Middle Ages and on through the 1918 flu epidemic (which killed between 50 and 100 million people) and this century's deadly SARS outbreak, plagues have been a much more relentless fact of life than many realize. The legacy of epidemics, Brian Michael Jenkins observes, is not only one of lives lost but of devastated economies and social disorder, all of which have severe political repercussions.

Fascinating, inarguable, passionately written, Weathering draws on thirty years of accessible scientific research to explore the harmful effects of living in an oppressive society, causing illness and earlier death to marginalised groups—as well as extraordinary resilience. This will be a landmark American non-fiction publication that will make us all think about Black Lives Matter beyond police killings and into every aspect of life, from housing to education to healthcare and help answer urgent questions about the disproportionate deaths from Covid-19 among BAME people.