"Innovation is undeniably a cool thing. Because of it, we survive diseases that regularly used to kill us. We can access and process unimaginable amounts of information. Without new technologies we would never meet the challenge to decarbonize the economy and contain climate change. But as Acemoglu and his MIT colleague Simon Johnson point out in their forthcoming book, Power and Progress (due out in May), contemporary evidence and the long story of humanity's technological development confirm 'there is nothing automatic about new technologies bringing widespread prosperity. Whether they do or not is an economic, social, and political choice.'"–Eduardo Porter, Bloomberg