Age of Discovery

Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: How do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology, to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the fifteenth century are both striking and prophetic: we havebeen here before. So what must we do to achieve our full potential, individually and altogether, this time around? Will we repeat the glories of the Renaissance, the misery, or both? In Age of Discovery, Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna show how we can draw courage, wisdom and inspiration from the days of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci in order to fashion our own Golden Age. Whether we're seized by Gutenberg or Zuckerberg, the discovery of the Americas or the rise of China, copperplate etchings or silicon chips, the Bonfire of the Vanities or the destructive fury of ISIS, the spread of syphilis or the Ebola pandemic, such Renaissance moments force humanity to give its best just when the stakes are at their highest. Turning the spotlight on the crises of our time, Age of Discovery shows how we can all define and create a lasting legacy that the world will still celebrate 500 years from now.