A major transformation is occurring today because of two new key technologies: information technology and biotechnology. This book is about the larger, long-range consequences of their impact.

These two technologies come as a major culmination of a series of previous technologies that have shaped human institutions. They are today poised to have a dramatic effect on virtually the entire humankind, much more so than all these earlier technologies. Their longrange effects have not been examined adequately in the existing literature. This book intends to fill this gap.