'While reading Tyranny of the Moment, I found myself both charmed and challenged. The subject is an important one, and Thomas Hylland Eriksen handles it with style, a light touch, and many amiable provocations.' Todd Gitlin The turn of the millennium is characterized by exponential growth in everything related to communication -- from the internet and email to air traffic. Tyranny of the Moment deals with some of the most perplexing paradoxes of this new information age. Who would have expected that apparently time-saving technology results in time being scarcer than ever? And has this seemingly limitless access to information led to confusion rather than enlightenment? Eriksen argues that slow time -- private periods where we are able to think and correspond without interruption -- is now one of the most precious resources we have. Since we are theoretically 'online' 24 hours a day, we must fight for the right to be unavailable -- the right to live and think more slowly. It is not only that working hours have become longer -- Eriksen also shows how the logic of this new information technology has permeated every area of our lives. Exploring phenomena such as the internet, wap telephones, multi- channel television and email, Eriksen examines this non-linear and fragmented way of communicating to reveal how it affects working conditions in the economy, changes in family life and, ultimately, personal identity. Eriksen argues that a culture lacking a sense of its past, and therefore of its future, is effectively static. Although solutions are suggested, he demonstrates that there is no easy way out.

托馬斯·H·埃裏剋森（Thomas H. Eriksen），挪威奧斯陸大學社會人類學係教授，多年來一直關注政治、民族主義和全球化等問題，已齣版多部社會學著作及相關主題的書籍。因為個人親身經曆瞭信息革命帶來的不可預料的後果，遂決意寫作此書，分析和闡釋當下社會發生的一切。還撰寫瞭多篇論文、雜文性的隨筆和一些書評。

周雲水，廣東人文社科重點研究基地嘉應學院客傢研究院專職研究人員，博士，主要從事西方社會人類學理論譯介及客傢族群文化變遷的研究，先後組織翻譯瞭《什麼是人類學》、《文化人類學——欣賞文化差異》、《全球化的關鍵概念》等著作。

何小榮，廣東省嘉應學院教師，主要研究族群文化和社會變遷，先後主持或參與翻譯《人類學與當今人類問題》、《發展的受害者》等著作。