John Brockman (literary agent)

John Brockman (born February 16, 1941 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He founded the Edge Foundation, an organization aimed to bring together people working at the edge of a broad range of scientific and technical fields. Referencing C.P. Snow's "two cultures", he introduced the "third culture" consisting of "those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." He led a scientific salon for 20 years, asking a question to a host of renowned scientists every year and publishing their answers in book form, which he decided to symbolically close down in 2018.[1]

Quotes

  • "Traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time."
  • "Throughout history, only a small number of people have done the serious thinking for everybody."

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ The Last John Brockman Edge Question, Wired article.
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