JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Author Bregman presents a case for building a new utopia: a society with guaranteed universal basic income, an abbreviated workweek, and open borders to permit the free flow of people and reduce, if not eliminate, poverty. Narrator Peter Noble contributes an intelligent narration, notable for his British-accented voicing and thoughtful, deliberate pacing. He guides the listener through historical implementations of similar proposals and charts the progress that has led to where we are today, when Bregman's ideas could represent a new way of living. Do Bregman's ideas represent a utopian dream or a proposition that is well within the realm of possibility? The author's straightforward writing combined with Noble's approachable narration makes it seem like utopia could indeed be near. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
01/30/2017
A universal basic income, a shrunken work week, and global open borders get endorsements from Bregman, a Dutch journalist and historian. He engagingly examines basic income schemes in 18th- and 19th- century England, in Manitoba in the early 1970s, and among the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. His summary of how close the United States came to passing a basic income law under President Nixon is entertaining and intriguing. “For the first time in history we are rich enough to finance a sizable basic income,” Bregman proclaims. The other legs of his triangle are explored with a little less focus and heft, with references to futurists’ estimates that the typical work week will be 15 hours by 2030 and that increased movement in the global labor market would have dramatic effects on world economic output. For readers on the left, these are appealing notions, presented here in a breezy, TED talk–like style. Bregman isn’t being glib when he says those who want to change the world need to be as “unrealistic, unreasonable, and impossible” as abolitionists, suffragists, and marriage equality activists once seemed to be. A more practical handbook, however, is required to make these far-reaching proposals seem achievable. Agent: Emma Parry, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
"A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell...To the extent that bookish economic historians can rampage, Bregman is on one...He combines a detailed approach to economic policy with a utopian vision of a better future...Bregman argues that it is only by dreaming about what seems to be unachievable that society can make good things possible."—Patrick Kingsley, New York Times
"Both a fun read and a breath of fresh air to anyone who lived through the ghastly experience of last year's presidential election season . . . Utopia for Realists argues, with humor and sympathy, that we've all suffered from forgetting how to dream of a better world....What's so interesting about modern America is our hostility to the mere idea of trying to create an easier and happier life. We're a country that was once rich with social experimentation . . . Now we don't really even try, and mostly just scream at each other on the Internet. That doesn't seem like it will get us there. Maybe free money and a three-hour workday won't, either, but it sure seems like it would be more fun to try."
—Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
"Convincing . . . Entertaining and reasoned . . . Bregman's book makes for enjoyable reading, and it is packed with colorful factual asides . . . Utopia for Realists should make for good conversation at the next dinner party."—Benjamin Cunningham, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Provocative and ambitious...The book is lively, well-researched, and full of unlikely pieces of history."—Tim Harford , Financial Times
"Utopia for Realists is fantastic. A quick glance turned into hours of riveting reading. Very seldom does a book change the way you think about some of most intractable problems of society, and of life. This one did. Read this book."—Sydney Finkelstein, director of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and author of Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent
"If you're bored with hackneyed debates and decades-old right-wing and left-wing clichés, you may enjoy the bold thinking, fresh ideas, lively prose, and evidence-based arguments in Utopia for Realists."
—Steven Pinker, New York Times bestselling author of The Blank Slate and The Better Angels of Our Nature
"Bregman speaks with impressive authority . . . His solutions are quite simple and staunchly set against current trends . . . He has assembled a wealth of empirical evidence to make his case. Better than that, though, Utopia for Realists is not a dry, statistical analysis-although he doesn't shy from solid data-but a book written with verve, wit, and imagination. The effect is charmingly persuasive, even when you can't quite believe what you're reading . . . Listen out for Rutger Bregman. He has a big future shaping the future."—Andrew Anthony, The Guardian UK
"Rutger Bregman is part of a new generation of thinkers who are suggesting exciting alternatives to the orthodoxies of the last forty years. In this surprising, accessible, and often counterintuitive book, Bregman explores some brilliant but simple ideas for making a better world."—Brian Eno
"A spirited and practical manifesto for improving the odds of making a heaven on Earth."
—Kirkus
"[Bregman] engagingly examines basic income schemes... entertaining and intriguing.... These are appealing notions, presented here in a breezy, TED talk-like style."
—Publishers Weekly
"This book is brilliant. Everyone should read it. Bregman shows us we've been looking at the world inside out. Turned right way out, we suddenly see fundamentally new ways forward. If we can get enough people to read this book, the world will start to become a better place."
—Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger
"Learning from history and from up-to-date social science can shatter crippling illusions. It can turn allegedly utopian proposals into plain common sense. It can enable us to face the future with unprecedented enthusiasm. To see how, read this superbly written, upbeat, insightful book."
—Philippe van Parijs, co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network
"This is a Read Now book. Nothing dystopian about this one: a young (he's 29), practical set of ideas for how the next generation can do better."—Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
"An important book, a wonderfully readable breath of fresh air, a window thrown open to a better future. As politicians and economists are asking how to increase productivity, ensure full employment, and downsize government, Bregman asks: What actually makes life worth living and how can we get there? He combines deep research with wit, challenging us to think anew about how we want to live and who we want to be. Required reading."
—Philipp Blom, author of The Vertigo Years and A Wicked Company
'It's a wonderful, well-written book, easily the crispest and least dry explanation of the research and history behind basic income as an idea I've seen in print."—Dylan Matthews, Vox
JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Author Bregman presents a case for building a new utopia: a society with guaranteed universal basic income, an abbreviated workweek, and open borders to permit the free flow of people and reduce, if not eliminate, poverty. Narrator Peter Noble contributes an intelligent narration, notable for his British-accented voicing and thoughtful, deliberate pacing. He guides the listener through historical implementations of similar proposals and charts the progress that has led to where we are today, when Bregman's ideas could represent a new way of living. Do Bregman's ideas represent a utopian dream or a proposition that is well within the realm of possibility? The author's straightforward writing combined with Noble's approachable narration makes it seem like utopia could indeed be near. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-12-27
A spirited and practical manifesto for improving the odds of making a heaven on Earth.Dutch journalist and economist Bregman opens with an ennobling proposition. "In the past," he writes, simply, "everything was worse." Then, a couple of hundred years ago, something happened: technological innovations allowed wealth and social welfare to spread, such that "a homeless person receiving public assistance today has more to spend than the average Dutch person in 1950, and four times more than people in Holland's Golden Age." Utopia, or nearly so—at least from the point of view of someone born as recently as in the times of Georgian England. So what happened? Well, there's predatory capitalism, the rise of a social order that encourages us not to care about others, and, perhaps worst of all, the advent of a supermechanized age in which "advancing technologies are laying waste to ever more jobs." What to do? Counsels Bregman in a spry, engaging argument, if we can't smash the machines—and that would be a start—then we can certainly try to stay a step ahead of them, for education will play an important role in the near-future economy "as long as machines can't go to college." Meanwhile, in the interest of political stability, if nothing else, the advanced nations might take a more proactive approach in sharing the wealth, not just within their own borders, but everywhere. Then there's perhaps the most utopian ideal of all, the idea that when we choose to work, we ought to be working at something that we find important and with intrinsic value—that, and, well, monkey-wrenching the system, and all with an eye to living more satisfying and healthy lives, the pronounced goal of a whole library of self-help books. Raise the minimum wage? No. Give everyone a basic income, smash the machines, and work a couple of days per week—that's the ticket. A provocative pleasure to contemplate.
