least in terms of quotidian life.nMedicine, banking, design,neducation—these are but a fewnof the areas that have alreadynbeen changed by computerntechnology (e.g., CAT scanners,nautomatic transfer of deposits,ncomputer-aided design terminalsn, BASIC classes), and this listnbarely scratches the surface:nthink of your wristwatch ornpocket calculator. In the worldnthat is becoming, ignorance isnnot blissfiil and, like it or not, itnwill be—no, is—folly to remainnuninformed. Those who don’tnstudy the past may be doomednto repeat it; those who don’t staynabreast of the present or who ignorenits consequences for thenfuture may be doomed.nDr. Gordon Pask is a directornof research for firms in the U.S.nand England, a professor in thendepartment of cybernetics at onenBritish university, and a professornat the London School ofnArchitecture. All positions butnthe last-named can be irresponsiblyndismissed with the epithetn”blue-sky”; Dr. Pask may be anvisionary, but he also has his feetnon the ground. Micro Man is anbeautifully illustrated text thatnappears to be easily accessed bynthe computer illiterate. It isn’t.nAlthough the first chapter containsnan excellent introductionnto computers, the going rapidlyngets rough, even though effortsnare made to propel reading. Ofncourse, this is assuming that thenbook’s Introduction is traversed,nwherein it’s stated that:nqualitative changes in thenrelationship between machinesnand human beingsn. . . are leading to thenevolution of a new species, anspecies we have dubbedn’micro man,’nand thatnComputers are no longernmerely our tools. They are anspecies in their own right,nneither independent fromnus, nor subservient to us.nThis may sound like bunkum. Itnisn’t, at least not entirely. As thenfirst of the headnotes indicates,nresearch is being performedntoward the end of producingncommercially viable biologicalncomputers. A key applicationnarea for the biochips is thenhuman body. The second headnotenis from a play written inn1921 in which the word robotnappears for the first time.nR. U.R. tells of a world whereinnhigh technology, in the form ofnorganic robots, results in thendestruction of the human race.nThat vision may be extreme—nbut no more so than that of computersnthat will literally “grow”nthemselves.nHigh technology may, asnPresident Reagan hopes, saventhe economy like the cavalry didnthe travelers. But if leaders innpolitics, religion, business, thensocial sciences, and the arts don’tnjoin their brethren in the engineeringnand scientific communitiesn, high technology may relievenAmericans of their scalps. DnIN FOCUSnVetting the Puppies of CotiflictnSir John Hackett: The ThirdnWorld War: The Untold Story;nMacmillan; New York.nby Alan J. LevinenThis so-called “untold story”nis a follow-up and companion tonSir John Hackett’s 1979 ThenThird World War: August 1985.nIt elaborates the picture given innthe earlier book of a Soviet attacknon NATO, with conventionalnweapons, in August 1985, asnseen from 1987. Most of the virtuesnand vices of the first booknare reproduced in this one. Thenreader of The Third World War,nhowever, should be warned thatnthe fictional near-future worldnshown in this book docs notnquite jibe with the one shown innthe earlier volume, at least in itsnpolitics. It is a comment on thenreliability of “futurology” thatnHackett’s original forecast, onlynthree years old, has been outdatednby a number of events, especiallynin the Middle East.nLike the first book, this is ancurious mix of pessimistic andnoptimistic assumptions—tendingntoward the latter. Whilenstressing the need for NATOnpreparedness, Hackett believesnthe Soviet giant has feet of clay,nand that the other side fullynshares our horror of nuclear war.nUnlike the first, this book attemptsnto come to grips with thenproblem of the nuclear-armsnrace—but not successftiUy, fornHackett assumes that a S’TARTnagreement of the sort now beingnsought by the Reagan Adminis-nDr. Levine is a frequent contributornto these pages.nnntration will defuse the nuclearnproblem. But an agreement ofnthat sort is not very likely in an”prewar” period in which Sovietnaggressiveness is increasing. Itnseems that Hackett is a bit reluctantnto face the full danger ofnnuclear war, as opposed to a bignconventional conflict. He himselfnnotes a number of technicalndevelopments—such as particle-n-beam weapons and the use ofnelectromagnetic pulses generatednby nuclear blasts in space tondisrupt electronic devices over annentire continent—which couldntotally change the strategic nuclearnsituation. But he assumesnthat both sides will happily agreento sit on the lid of what he termsnthe “Pandora’s Box” of technologicalnadvance. That is not anvery likely assumption. Perhapsnit is not even a truly optimisticnone, for some of these developmentsnjust might take mankindnout from under the shadow itnhas been living in since 1945.nOne of the failings of the newntext is found in its treatment ofnpolitics. Everybody, except thenSoviets and, oddly, the Israelis,nturns out to be nice and sensiblenat the critical moments. Hack-n^•^41nApril 1983n