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Over the last year I've reviewed several ~1900 era future dystopias, such as Metropolis, We, and Pictures of the Socialist Future. I wanted to see fears of the industrial revolution, from an era when that revolution was still young enough for people could see things from a farmer era point of view, and yet old enough that people had some idea of where the revolution was going.

I just read a fascinating book by Douglas W. Allen, The Institutional Revolution, which attempts to explain England's transition from its apparently illogical early-modern institutions - aristocracy, purchased army commissions, lighthouses, private roads, even dueling - to modern institutions. And today, we see many of those institutions challenged.

The Third Industrial Revolution: How the Internet, Green Electricity, and 3-D Printing are Ushering in a Sustainable Era of Distributed Capitalism

'We're in the middle of a revolution caused by the near collapse of free-market capitalism combined with an upswing in technical innovation, a surge in desire for individual freedom and a change in consciousness about what freedom means.'

" "Commons-Based Peer Production". It's a revolution in how things are made, by whom, and in what quantities. In some ways, the future looks a lot like the past. These blacksmiths are making a local solution to a local problem. And we're going to be seeing a lot more of that." And this was a presentation for the World Economic Forum, in China.  Just imagine how we can use the web and virtual spaces to work with global teams, in order to produce on a very local level... 

"His team of doctors and engineers triggered headlines around the world last week by successfully operating to replace an elderly patient's diseased jawbone with a prosthetic generated by 3D printing. Now Prof. Jules Poukens says that could be just the start of a bionic revolution."

The digitisation of manufacturing will transform the way goods are made-and change the politics of jobs too

Joseph Stiglitz explains how the Great Depression is caused by the revolution in agriculture. We're facing a similar shift now in the "real" economy. 

The BBC's Matt Danzico investigates what place traditional academic institutions have in a world consumed by do-it-yourself education.