John Brockman (literary agent)

John Brockman
John Brockman in 2009
Born	(1941-02-16) February 16, 1941 (age 84) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Literary agent, editor, writer

John Brockman (born February 16, 1941) is an American literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He established the Edge Foundation, an online magazine exploring scientific and intellectual ideas.

Early life

Brockman was born to immigrants of Polish-Jewish descent in a poor Irish Catholic enclave of Boston, Massachusetts. ^[1] Expanding on C. P. Snow's "two cultures", he introduced the "third culture" ^[2] 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."

Career

He led a scientific salon for 20 years, asking an annual question to a host of renowned scientists and publishing their answers in book form, ^[3] which he decided to symbolically close down in 2018. ^[4]

He is an editor of Edge.org. ^{[5] [6]}

Association with Jeffrey Epstein

In an interview with Prince Andrew on November 17, 2019, BBC reporter Emily Maitlis mentioned that both Andrew and John Brockman attended a dinner at child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion to celebrate Epstein’s release from prison for charges which stemmed from at least one decade of child sex trafficking. ^[7] Brockman's name was also found in Epstein's private jet log. ^[8]

Andrew’s presence at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion was corroborated by Brockman himself, in emails published in an October 2019 New Republic report. The story suggested that Brockman was the “intellectual enabler” of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who died in August 2019 while again awaiting trial on charges related to sex trafficking. ^[9]

Brockman's literary dinners, held during the TED Conference, were, for a number of years after Epstein’s conviction, almost entirely funded by Epstein as documented in his annual tax filings. ^[10] This allowed Epstein to mingle with scientists, startup icons and tech billionaires. ^{[11] [12]}

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." ^[13]
• "Throughout history, only a small number of people have done the serious thinking for everybody." ^[13]

Bibliography

Books as author

• (1969) By the Late John Brockman ISBN   978-0062326782
• (1970) 37 ISBN   978-0030850523
• (1973) Afterwords: Explorations of the Mystical Limits of Contemporary Reality ISBN   978-0385015547
• (1995) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution ISBN   978-0684803593

Books as co-author

With Edwin Schlossberg

• (1975) The Pocket Calculator Game Book ISBN   0-688-02983-3
• (1977) The Philosopher's Game: Match Your Wits Against the 100 Greatest Thinkers of All Time ISBN   978-0241898277
• (1977) The Kids' Pocket Calculator Game Book ISBN   9780688082338
• (1977) The 1977-78 CB Guide ISBN   978-0553105070
• (1977) The Pocket Calculator Game Book 2 ISBN   978-0552980340
• (1977) The Home Computer Handbook (also with Lyn Horton) ISBN   978-0806930961
• (1985) The Kinks Kronikles (also with John Mendelssohn) ISBN   978-0688029838

With Edward Rosenfeld

• (1973) Real Time 1: A Catalog of Ideas and Information ISBN   978-0385083898
• (1973) Real Time 2: A Catalog of Ideas and Information ISBN   978-0385022248

Books as editor

The Reality Club Series

• (1990) Speculations: The Reality Club ISBN   978-0138262150
• (1991) Doing Science: The Reality Club 2 ISBN   978-0137950973
• (1991) Ways of Knowing: The Reality Club 3 ISBN   978-0135172360
• (1993) Creativity: The Reality Club 4 ISBN   9780671789268

Edge Question series

• (2005) What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty ISBN   978-1849832175
• (2006) What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable ISBN   978-0743295536
• (2007) What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better ISBN   978-0061870033
• (2009) This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future (with Patrick Bateson, Oliver Morton, Stephen Schneider, Stewart Brand, Brian Eno, K. Eric Drexler, and others) ISBN   978-0061899676
• (2009) What Have You Changed Your Mind About?: Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything. 150 high-powered thinkers discuss their most telling missteps and reconsiderations with Alan Alda, Brian Eno, Ray Kurzweil, Irene Pepperberg, Steven Pinker, Lisa Randall etc. ISBN   978-0061686542
• (2011) Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future ISBN   978-0062020444
• (2012) This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking ISBN   978-0062109392
• (2013) This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works ISBN   978-0062230171
• (2014) What Should We Be Worried About?: The Hidden Threats Nobody Is Talking About ISBN   978-0062296238
• (2015) This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories that are Blocking Progress ISBN   978-0062374349
• (2015) What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence ISBN   978-0062425652
• (2017) Know This: Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments ISBN   978-0062562067
• (2018) This Idea is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know ISBN   978-0062698216
• (2019) The Last Unknowns: Deep, Elegant, Profound, UNANANSWERED QUESTIONS About the Universe, the Mind, the Future of Civilization, and the Meaning of Life ISBN   978-0062897947

Best of Edge series

• (2011) The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness ISBN   978-0062025845
• (2011) Culture: Leading Scientists Explore Societies, Art, Power, and Technology ISBN   978-0062023131
• (2013) Thinking: The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction in Life and Markets ISBN   978-0062258540
• (2014) The Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos ISBN   978-0062296085
• (2016) Life: The Leading Edge of Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Anthropology, and Environmental Science ISBN   978-0062296054

Other books

• (1977) About Bateson ISBN   978-0525474692
• (1986) Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein & Frankenstein: Re-inventing the Universe ISBN   978-0670804801
• (1995) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution ISBN   978-0684803593
• (1996) How Things Are: A Science Tool-Kit for the Mind (with Katinka Matson), Harper Perennial ISBN   978-0688133566
• (1996) Digerati: Encounters with the Cyber Elite ISBN   978-1888869040
• (2000) The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years ISBN   978-0684859989
• (2002) The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century ISBN   978-0375713422
• (2002) The New Humanists: Science at the Edge ISBN   978-0760745298
• (2004) Curious Minds: How a Child becomes a Scientist ISBN   978-0375422911
• (2006) My Einstein: Essays by Twenty-four of the World's Leading Thinkers on the Man, His Work, and His Legacy ISBN   978-0375423451
• (2006) Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement ISBN   978-0307277220
• (2019) Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI ISBN   978-0525557999

References

1. Dazed (2012-07-08). "John Brockman". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-02-26.
2. John, Warren St (1999-09-01). "Agent Provocateur". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2019-03-25.
3. Marcus, Gary (2013-01-15). "What We Should Fear". ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved 2019-03-25.
4. The Last John Brockman Edge Question, Wired article.
5. Popova, Maria (2011-09-14). "15 Years of Cutting-Edge Thinking on Understanding the Mind". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
6. Naughton, John (2012-01-08). "John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved 2019-03-25.
7. Maitlis, Emily (Nov 17, 2019). "Prince Andrew Newsnight interview" . Retrieved Jan 3, 2022– via The BBC.
8. Moscatello, Caitlin; Stieb, Matt; Cheney-Rice, Zak; Kilgore, Ed; Barkan, Ross; Danner, Chas (2019-07-22). "The High Society That Surrounded Jeffrey Epstein". Intelligencer.
9. Morozov, Evgeny (Aug 22, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein's Intellectual Enabler". The New Republic. Retrieved Oct 13, 2019.
10. Aldhous, Peter (Sep 26, 2019). "How Jeffrey Epstein Bought His Way Into An Exclusive Intellectual Boys Club" . Retrieved Jan 3, 2022– via Buzzfeed.
11. Morozov, Evgeny (Sep 7, 2019). "The Epstein scandal at MIT shows the moral bankruptcy of techno-elites". The Guardian. Retrieved Oct 13, 2019– via www.theguardian.com.
12. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled An Exclusive Intellectual Boys Club And Reaped The Benefits". BuzzFeed News. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-18.
13. "Introduction | Edge.org". www.edge.org. Retrieved Oct 14, 2019.

Further reading

• Cultural Studies versus the "Third Culture". Slavoj Žižek. The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol 101, No 1, pages 19–32 (2002). (article)
• Counterculture, Cyberculture, and the Third Culture: Reinventing Civilization, Then and Now. Lee Worden. West of Eden: Communes and Utopia in Northern California, Iain Boal, Janferie Stone, Michael Watts, Cal Winslow (eds.), pages 199–221. (Oakland, 2012).
• The "Third Culture Intellectuals" and Charles Darwin. Pascal Fischer. Anglistentag Konstanz 2013: Proceedings (XXXV), pages 71-80 (2014). (article) Archived 2018-10-08 at the Wayback Machine
• Neurohistory Is Bunk?: The Not-So-Deep History of the Postclassical Mind. Max Stadler. Isis, Vol 105, No 1, pages 133-144 (2014). (article)
• Network Celebrity: Entrepreneurship and the New Public Intellectuals. Fred Turner. Christine Larson. Public Culture, Vol 27, No 1, pages 53-84 (2015) (article)

External links

• John Brockman Archived 2019-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
• Brockman's taste for Science or how to entertain the smartest people Archived 2006-05-20 at the Wayback Machine
• Guardian Interview
• John Brockman at HuffPost
• "So What Happens After Happenings?", New York Times, September 4, 1966
• John Brockman: 40 years of "intermedia kinetic environments"
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• John Brockman by Jacqueline Marcus, July 8, 2012