The Creative Society: How the Future Can Be Won

Human creativity has been one of the fundamental drivers of civilization and progress-solving immense problems, creating opportunities and overcoming enemies like no other force. Often it has baffled its sceptics by finding new and better resources, unexpected environmental technologies and genuinely amazing products that no one had predicted. However, like so many before it, Western civilization is now suffering from serious internal decay with its bloated public sectors, punitive taxes, over-regulation, marginalized citizens, stagnation, debt, unemployment and pessimism.

This important and fascinating book explains why internal decay is normal. But it also shows how and why solutions can be found by countries and companies, enabling more creativity and adaptability than ever before. It's through the power of creativity that society and business can overcome the challenges and crises of today.

In this entertaining and fact-filled big history book, Lars Tvede, bestselling author and serial entrepreneur, examines why so many societies through history have seen their creativity bloom for a few centuries or less, after which it often faded rapidly or stopped almost entirely. To explain this puzzle, Tvede provides a unique description of the basic criteria for spontaneous creativity in any system and goes on to show how these criteria at times have been met in some countries but not others. In the last sections of the book he explains why some modern societies now have become essentially static and what can be done about it.