If you are reading this book, you are probably a professional or a wannabe professional in training. Training and practice in the professions require literacy and, to some extent, the curiosity that might encourage you to buy or borrow a book of essays on “The Creative Society.” Odds are you live and work in a city or suburb. If you have a job right now, you probably get paid by a relatively large organization and most of your income – like mine – comes to you in the form of regular paychecks. If even a few of these guesses are accurate, you should keep reading because you’re the central subject of this history.

How could that be true? History, we were told in school, has always been shaped by presidents and prime ministers, by generals and dictators, by the people who make it into the headlines of newspapers, the TV news, and the blogs. If you don't believe that, just borrow your daughter or son's history text and skim through the index. You’ll recognize many of the names even though it may take you a while to remember exactly what they did or when they did it.