Makers: The New Industrial Revolution - Hardcover

"Anderson is a sort of capitalist revolutionary, and Makers is the industrial chapter in a larger manifesto for the democratizing force of the internet." (Seven, Sunday Telegraphy)

"A fascinating and important book" (PQ Magazine)

"a contribution to be welcomed ... Anderson's enthusiasm for the topic - and skill in telling the human stories behind this - is appealing." (Financial Times)

"Anyone who has ever dreamed of starting their own business, making their fortune by utilizing the internet or inventing some fantastic new world-changing product would be the ideal audience for this particular book. It can jumpstart you into thinking of ways to allow technology to transform your life and the products that surround us" (DeskDemon/PA Book Review)

"particularly canny ... snappily melds its cyberutopian vision" (New Statesman)

If a country wants to remain economically vibrant, it needs to manufacture things. In recent years, however, many nations have become obsessed with making money out of selling services, leaving the real business of manufacturing to others.

Makers is about how all that is being reversed. Over the past ten years, the internet has democratised publishing, broadcasting and communications, leading to a massive increase in the range of participation in everything digital - the world of bits. Now the same is happening to manufacturing - the world of things.

Chris Anderson, bestselling author of The Long Tail, explains how this is happening: how such technologies as 3D printing and electronics assembly are becoming available to everybody, and how people are building successful businesses as a result. Whereas once every aspiring entrepreneur needed the support of a major manufacturer, now anybody with a smart idea and a little expertise can make their ideas a reality. Just as Google, Facebook and others have created highly successful companies in the virtual world, so these new inventors and manufacturers are assuming positions of ever greater importance in the real world.

The next industrial revolution is on its way.