Books like Future perfect by Steven Johnson

Walter Isaacson chronicles the minds that forged the digital age, from Ada Lovelace to Larry Page, showing how vision, collaboration, and engineering transformed abstract ideas into the computers, Internet, and technology we use today.

The Information, by James Gleick, traces the evolution of how humans encode, transmit, and understand messages—from African talking drums to the long‑distance telephone and beyond.

Max Tegmark explores how artificial intelligence will reshape crime, war, justice, jobs, and our sense of humanity, offering practical guidance on ensuring AI remains beneficial and resilient.

An engaging exploration of the 1854 London cholera outbreak and how Dr. John Snow’s mapping of the epidemic transformed public health, urban planning, and the science of disease transmission.

An illustrated exploration of the hidden history behind everyday inventions, showing how seemingly unrelated discoveries shaped our modern world.

Erik Brynjolfsson explores how digital technologies are reshaping work, productivity, and society—highlighting both the opportunities and the disruptions—and offers strategies for education, collaboration, and policy in the emerging economy.

Kurzweil explores the coming fusion of human minds with advanced machines, predicting that integrated intelligence will surpass current human capacity, shaping future society.

Michio Kaku charts humanity’s probable future as it expands beyond Earth, examining space‑colonization, terraforming, nanotechnology, and interstellar travel.

Homo Deus explores how powerful algorithms, advanced genetics and digital surveillance are reshaping democracy, the welfare state, and human work toward a future where Homo sapiens may become Homo Deus.

This book crystallizes and extends the important work Wiebe Bijker has done in the last decade to found a full-scale theory of sociotechnical change that describes where technologies come from and how societies deal with them. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs integrates detailed case studies with theoretical generalizations and political analyses to offer a fully rounded treatment both of the relations between technology and society and of the issues involved in sociotechnical change. The stories of the safety bicycle, the first truly synthetic plastic, and the fluorescent light bulb - each a fascinating case study in itself- reflect a cross-section of time periods, engineering and scientific disciplines, and economic, social, and political cultures. The bicycle story explores such issues as the role of changing gender relationships in shaping a technology; the Bakelite story examines the ways in which social factors intrude even in cases of seemingly pure chemistry and entrepreneurship; and the fluorescent bulb story offers insights into the ways in which political and economic relationships can affect the form of a technology. Bijker's method is to use these case studies to suggest theoretical concepts that serve as building blocks in a more and more inclusive theory, which is then tested against further case studies. His main concern is to create a basis for studies of science, technology, and social change that uncovers the social roots of technology, making it amenable to democratic politics.

Steven Johnson argues that modern pop culture—from video games to television—has become increasingly sophisticated, challenging our minds and sharpening cognition rather than dulling it.