LITERATURE

Why does it feel as if our most challenging problems today—worldwide recession, global warming, fast-spreading viruses, water and food shortages, poverty—aren’t being solved? What if our brain has limits that prevent it from solving such complex problems? If ancient civilizations collapsed because they, too, hit a cognitive limitation, are we headed for a similar collapse? Can it be prevented? These are the questions Rebecca Costa confronts—and offers a solution to—in her intriguing and game-changing book, The Watchman’s Rattle.

In a fascinating and engrossing argument, Costa presents ideas for how we can reverse our own downward spiral. Citing cutting-edge research, she reveals how the human brain can spontaneously call upon a powerful cognitive tool: insight. She also describes four modern-day supermemes that appear all around us: the oppositional culture, the personalization of blame, casual science, and the business society. Costa meticulously proves how these supermemes have produced global gridlock.

Costa is a former CEO and founder of Silicon Valley start-up, Dazai Advertising, Inc. (sold to J. Walter Thompson in 1997), whose clients have included Apple Computer, Applied Materials, Oracle Corporation, 3M, Amdahl, United TeleCom, and General Electric Corporation. She attributes her natural ability to spot global patterns to a cross-cultural education and upbringing. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara, with a BA in Social Sciences, and earned an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Forward by E.O. Wilson. Regarded as one of the world’s preeminent biologists and naturalists, Edward O. Wilson spent his boyhood exploring the region’s forests and swamps, collecting snakes, butterflies, and ants—the latter to become his lifelong specialty. He is a professor at Harvard and the author of more than twenty books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Ants and The Naturalist as well as his first novel Anthill.