Robert Jungk - Tomorrow is already here (1954)

Review

An infernal tomorrow, already here- possesses and depresses one during the reading, but in final analysis forces the reader to reassess those things in our country that will never fall before the onslaughts of modern science. Even within the trammels of science there exists an oasis for ideas, Princeton's Institute of Advanced Studies. There technical developments are kept outside; ""new and true thoughts"" are explored for tomorrow; creative thinking is given its chance... A European journalist here reports his findings on the country that leads the world in its industrial and scientific development. Factories and laboratories seek to recreate a man-made cosmos; proving grounds and air fields record areas beyond belief with delicate instruments, rocket born; scientists in military guise plot conquest of distance; speed trials find terminus in California's deserts; new pioneers on the frontier of human endurance volunteer for inhuman experiments; laboratories of aviation and space medicine explore the values of protective measures. All this seems so remotely laboratory controlled that one reads it dispassionately. Then one is confronted with the march of science in agriculture, the immense impersonality of the management of huge production areas where new types of controls, new speedup processes are taken for granted; and where even the restive bulls get their outlets on fake cows, and artificial insemination is made possible half a world away. The reading and viewing public has been gradually indoctrinated with the outward evidence of the march of the atom, but closeups of the virtual slavery of the scientists within forbidden areas, the still unplumbed secrets of the dangers of radioactivity, the death of towns to make way for more and more installations, these give it all a new look. ... Kirkus Review