FRESH
LOOK
book reviews
La revolución horizontal:
El poder de la comunicación
en manos de la gente
Gonzalo Alonso and Alberto Arébalos
114
Ediciones B, 2009, Softcover, 336 pages
La revolución horizontal: El
poder de la comunicación en
manos de la gente
by Gonzalo Alonso and
Alberto Arébalos
REVIEWED BY MARCO ENRÍQUEZ-OMINAMI
116
El insomnio de Bolívar:
Cuatro consideraciones
intempestivas sobre América
Latina en el siglo XXI
by Jorge Volpi
117
FIRST LOOK
THE BEST NEW AND
RECENT BOOKS ON POLICY,
ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
IN THE HEMISPHERE
New information technologies are constantly redefining the ways in which politicians and
businesses are interacting with consumers and voters. The result is a
changing paradigm in the fundamental order of societies—a fact
welcomed by many but greeted with
apprehension by others.
La revolución horizontal: El poder
de la comunicación en manos de la
gente (The Horizontal Revolution:
The Power of Communication in the
Hands of the People) is perhaps the
most refreshing book to come out of
Latin America recently that examines the evolution of communication
and the Internet. As a politician who
has used social media to wage a dark-horse political campaign, I can attest
that the young authors accurately
portray how technology—including
Twitter, Facebook, and similar social
net working—has reshaped the way in
which candidates reach out to their
base and bring others into their political circle.
The authors add a real-life, practi-
cal dimension to the book that is of-
ten missing from such larger macro
studies. Alberto Arébalos is the direc-
tor of communications and public af-
fairs of Google in Latin America, and
Gonzalo Alonso is the vice president
of operations at Globant and was pre-
viously Google’s general director for
Latin America.
The authors approach complicated
subjects with philosophical reflections on how people perceive and
communicate their options, tastes
and consumption. They describe the
evolution of certain instruments or
tools in different industries, such as
music or literature, but more specifically they deal with the new type of
human formed by these new tools.
Technology has distorted the perception of being; today, peoples’ sense of
the here and now can be played out
repeatedly and simultaneously online.
Although this book is limited to the
phenomenon of new technologies, it
also raises questions about fundamental philosophical tenets, both about
the nature of man and the organization of society and the economy.
The authors prove with theoretical and empirical evidence that information technology is sparking
a “horizontal revolution.” In doing
so, they also subscribe to a principle that is long overdue for a debate
with traditional liberal thinkers. As
Adam Smith said, freedom and self-interest produce order, not chaos.
But what happens—as discussed in
La revolución horizontal—when people want different things at different
times? Or, with the Internet, when
everyone wants the same thing at the
same time? This raises fundamental
