Who Are We Now?

The world looks very different today than it did twenty or even five years ago – physically, socially, and culturally. Look back decades or centuries and the contrast is even more dramatic. This book examines ways we define ourselves, how those definitions have been changing, at increasingly rapid rates, and what these changes may mean for individuals, societies, and the planet.

After a brief discussion of handedness, the bulk of the book deals with gender, with a final section discussing growth – of ideas and cities and populations. The author, a statistician, takes pains to show the research from which he draws his conclusions, with copious footnotes and sidebars. He also includes a plethora of graphs, and gives straightforward explanations without getting mired in the data. And the conclusions are, frequently, fascinating, and perhaps startling.

A series of well-crafted surveys exposes “the excluded middle”; whether talking about handedness, gender, politics, environment, or artificial intelligence, the world is exceedingly complex. The data presentation was nuanced and sensitive. Ultimately, as addressed in the final section, humanity will continue to change. Our identities will increasingly be defined by our own decisions, rather than by external factors that impose those identities upon us.