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The book, Post-Intellectualism, argues that we are abandoning our intellectual heritage--inherited from the Enlightenment--that forms the basis for all our democratic institutions.  In its place we have evolved, over the last 40 or 50 years, into a post-intellectual web culture, characterized by three determinants: the information overload, technological determinism, and the end of linear economic growth and development.  This explains many of our social, political, economic, and cultural problems evident today--the Progress Paradox.

"Wood's argument is that we are in the process of reversing 400 years of intellectual evolution that has made the existence of democracy and freedom possible. . . . The sociopolitical evidence in this book is overwhelming."

 

 

What they say about the book:

  Booknews, Inc. (December 1, 1996)

"Wood introduces the concept of post-intellectualism and surveys some of the personal, social, and political consequences he fears.  He also looks at concerns and questions on reversing the effects of the Progress Paradox and offers ten recommendations."

"Provocative social-cultural theory; jeremiad; prophecy of an already-arrived technocratic dystopia.  This book by a senior media scholar is all these."

  J. D. Gillespie, Presbyterian College, Choice (April 1997)

      R. W. Carstens, Ohio Dominion College, Perspectives on Political Science (Spring 1997)

 

The book, The Unraveling of the West: The Rise of Postmodernism and the Decline of Democracy, is a follow-up work.  It amplifies the idea of post-intellectualism and places it in the context of postmodernism.  The book was published by the Greenwood Publishing Group, under its Praeger imprint, in late 2003.  It won the 2005 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology, presented by the Media Ecology Association.  Lance Strate, President of the MEA, writes that Don Wood "does a great job of critiquing postmodern culture while providing original syntheses of the critical literature on the impact of technology."