The rampant illnesses of our society--including the disintegration of the family, the degradation of the environment, unlimited commercialism, and unrelenting stress--are familiar to us all. For the first time, Stephen Bertman attempts to explain these disparate, overwhelmingly negative phenomena with a single, unifying principle: that the accelerated pace of American society is eroding the essence of our most fundamental values. In 1970, Alvin Toffler identified a psycho-biological disease he called future shock caused by too much change in too short a time. Now Bertman daringly diagnoses...

According to Bertman, just as an individual needs memories to maintain a sense of personal identity, so does a nation need them in order to survive. Like Alzheimer victims, however, today's Americans are rapidly losing a consciousness of history, and with it, a sense of national identity and direction.

Sixty percent of adult Americans don't know the name of the president who ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb, 42% of college seniors can't place the Civil War in the right half-century, and 24% think Columbus discovered America in the 1500s. Meanwhile, more American teenagers...

Examining-room computers require doctors to record detailed data about their patients, yet reduce the time clinicians can spend listening attentively to the very people they are trying to help. This book presents original essays by distinguished experts in their fields, addressing this critical problem and making an urgent case for reform, because while electronic technology has revolutionized the practice of medicine, it also poses a unique challenge to health care. Smartphones in the hands of doctors and nurses have become dangerously seductive devices that can endanger their...