SOURCE: “A Fast-Paced Look at the Whirl and Flux of Modern Life,” in Chicago Tribune Books, September 19, 1999, p. 1.

In the following review of Faster, Hunnicutt takes issue with Gleick's fast-paced analysis of social change and his acceptance of the acceleration of contemporary life.

So much to do! So little time!

Fragments of old hippie hymns ring in the ear: “Slow down, you move too fast, / You got to make the morning last”; “No time for a gentle rain. … No time left for you.”

Now there is precious little time left for anyone. All is speed and rush, whirl and flux. Our lives race ahead, the pace ever more breathless. And the race gets longer. We become long-distance runners, plunging headlong at a sprinter's pace.

What happened? Where are we going, and why so fast?

In Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, James Gleick gives us a delightful...