My review of historian Zachary Karabell's "Visionary America" which positioned the first New Economy's Internet-based, market-driven utopia as only the latest fevered dream to consume the U.S. "Ceaselessly striving for an ideal," he writes, "we do not honor what has worked in the past, and our fingers are always ready to pull the trigger on what is working in the present.” Americans, he argue, are prone to seek utopias, catalyzing a series of missed opportunities for greatness as a nation. In my conclusion I wrote, "Almost 400 years after Jamestown was settled, America must learn to balance individualism with communal life, rather than betting double-or-nothing on visions and then feeling poleaxed when they fail to materialize." 25 years later, I stand by that.
