Most of us feel it, even if we can’t quite name it: the world is moving faster than our ability to understand it.
Technology leaps ahead, geopolitics realigns, markets lurch, institutions lose credibility, and public conversation gets noisier and vacuous at the same time. We’re left with a strange mix of information overload and conceptual hunger—plenty of “content,” not enough clarity.
That’s what Present Tense is for.
Why this site exists
I’m Neil, a retired academic who spent decades studying change—how people and organizations behave under uncertainty and how systems respond when the ground shifts beneath them.
In retirement, I’ve returned to a simpler craft: reading carefully and thinking in public.
Contemporary books are one of the best places to watch the struggle for meaning. They’re where smart people try to build frameworks for what’s happening—about geopolitics, China and America, AI and work, trade and industrial policy, culture and institutions, the future and the stories we tell ourselves to get through the day.
But not all frameworks are equal. Some illuminate. Some impress. Some soothe. Some sell. And some are simply wrong in interesting ways.
This site is my attempt to separate those categories.
What you’ll find here
Present Tense is a blog of critical reviews of contemporary books—written for the general reader, without jargon, but not without rigor.
Each review will try to do four things:
- State the argument plainly
What is the author actually claiming, in everyday language? - Test the foundations
What evidence supports the argument? What assumptions are being smuggled in? Where does the logic bend? - Name what the book gets right—and what it misses
Not in the spirit of point-scoring, but in the spirit of clearer seeing. - Leave you more enlightened about the world
Not with a simplistic verdict, but with sharper questions and a sturdier map.
In other words: I’m not here to be a cheerleader or a contrarian. I’m here to be useful.
The kind of “critical” I mean
Online, “critical” often means sarcasm, moral posturing, or ideological sorting.
That’s not the goal.
The goal is a form of criticism that respects the reader’s time and intelligence:
- fair engagement with what the author is trying to do
- clear identification of what’s supported versus what’s asserted
- attention to real-world implications, not just clever ideas
- an honest accounting of tradeoffs and uncertainty
We live in an era of confident narratives. My instinct is to slow down and ask: confident on what basis?
Why “Present Tense”?
The title is deliberate.
It points to two commitments:
- Presence: resisting the trance of distraction and the emotional contagion of the news cycle.
- Tense: acknowledging that this is a strained moment—high stakes, fraying institutions, accelerating technology, and plenty of reasons to think carefully before we act.
Where I’m starting: Breakneck
The first full review will be Dan Wang’s Breakneck.
It’s an apt opening because it speaks directly to the sensation behind this whole project: speed, power, industrial capability, technological acceleration—and the question that sits underneath so much current anxiety:
Who is building the future faster, and what does that mean for the rest of us?
I’ll treat the book as a serious argument, not as a banner to wave. I’ll try to show what it clarifies, what it assumes, and what it leaves out.
An invitation
If you’ve found yourself asking any of these:
- What’s real in all this noise?
- Which ideas are worth taking seriously?
- How do we think clearly without becoming cynical?
- What does “progress” actually mean, and for whom?
…then you’re the intended reader.
You don’t have to agree with me. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t outsource your judgment. What I’m offering is a companionable rigor: careful reading, clean reasoning, and the courage to say “I’m not convinced” when the evidence doesn’t support the confidence.
Welcome to Present Tense.
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