Different Times, Different Places

An eclectic mix of essays and articles, Different Times, Different Places tells stories ranging from a young American doctor determined to stop a plague in southern Sudan to the son of a British engineer who styled himself as an "architect of air" and created an industry producing gigantic inflatable structures designed to help people meditate. An African American artist in Austin, Texas probes the depths of African American identity, while billionaire art collectors fly their private jets to Basel, Switzerland to fight over accepted masterpieces by Picasso, Miro, and Warhol. An American scientist pushes awareness of climate change, while scientists in the US, Britain, and China ponder the causes of a pandemic, and an exclusive meeting in Geneva has a champagne night out in order to reflect on the dismal effects of global hunger. US politics finds itself upended by an ornery tech billionaire who has himself declared a deputy sheriff in Arizona so he can carry a gun and then puts a million dollars into a little-known British communications laboratory that uses Facebook data to promote extremism in American politics. Different Times, Different Places offers up a grab bag of snapshots of today's world culture caught up in a dizzying tempo of rapidly accelerating change.