Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

We are always trying to save it. We fit more and more into less and less of it. But no matter what we do, there is never enough of it. With acute insight and mordant wit, James Gleick examines the biological, psychological, and cultural considerations that define our very human limits where time is concerned. He begins with "technological" time: the development of the watch; the advent of standard time; the jolt of recognition brought about by machines in which speed could be measured, computed, or adjusted; photography's ability to freeze a fast-moving world; computer-generated time. He then explores the myriad ways--from business-cycle time to beeper medicine to Federal Express to quick playback buttons on answering machines--in which we employ speed in an attempt to streach the mere 1,440 minutes alloted to us each day.

Faster is a fascinating, eye-opening portrait of our life and times--and the time in out lives--as we prepare for the final sprint toward the millennium.