About the book
The world looks as though it’s becoming increasingly complex and confusing. In today’s ‘Network Society’ you can’t drink a cup of coffee without implicating yourself in exploitation and slavery; your job can be at stake when halfway around the planet a bank topples over. Given these developments, we increasingly perceive the world as something dangerous beyond our control and, as a result, turn our gaze inward where we cling to the things we do have a handle on. The result: collective narcissism and a public sphere in which a sharp opinion has more value than a considered judgement.
With a supple pen and incisive analyses, Thijs Lijster offers a kaleidoscopic look at the most diverse selection of cultural and social phenomena, including design, life’s accelerating pace, the omnipresence of opinion polls and the position of illegal immigrants.
The Great Leap Inward is a plea for thinking against the grain by which even the most insignificant details can be regarded as rich in meaning.
