Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies

Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, by Calestous Juma. Oxford University Press, New York, 2016, 432 pages, U.S. $29.95 (hardback), ISBN: 9780190467036.

In book “Innovation and Its Enemies” Professor Calestous Juma takes us to a fascinating journey of disruptive technological innovations that took place across the world impacting lives of several billions of people for generations. In the beginning, the author indicates “This book identifies the dynamics of social opposition to innovation” (p. 1). New technologies are outcomes of disruptive innovations for satisfying the changing societal needs. New technologies are the matter of public scrutiny, which could be opposed by a group of people concerning the social norms, health implications, social disruption, while some other groups could be influenced by prejudices or human ignorance. The innovation is essentially a creative process for economic transformation of creators and entrepreneurs making the new technologies available to the larger consumers. Gradually, modern society becomes more technology savvy than the people lived in the pre-modern era.