Steven Johnson

Harvard Book Store welcomes bestselling author STEVEN JOHNSON—host and co-creator of How We Got to Now—for a discussion of his latest book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most.

About Farsighted

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.

Praise

“Johnson is a succinct, colorful, and skillful writer, and this book is one of those rare works that is highly relevant to the daily functioning of just about everybody.” —Publishers Weekly 

“Mr. Johnson’s erudition can be quite gobsmacking.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A first-rate storyteller.” —The New York Times

“A maven of the history of ideas.” —The Guardian

“Steven Johnson’s mind works in wondrous ways.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer