Book excerpt: This fascinating look at innovations past and present—and our sometimes mistaken beliefs about them—“puts technological change into historical perspective” (Henry Petroski, author of The Evolution of Useful Things). Everyone knows that today’s rate of technological change is unprecedented. With breakthroughs from the Internet to cell phones to digital music and pictures, everyone knows that the social impact of technology has never been as profound or overwhelming. But how much is truth and how much is hype? Future Hype surveys the past few hundred years to show that many of the technologies we now take for granted transformed society in far more dramatic ways than more recent developments so often touted as unparalleled and historic. In this thoughtful book, Bob Seidensticker exposes the hidden costs of technology—and helps both consumers and businesses take a shrewder position when the next “essential” innovation is trotted out.