Why am I passionate about this?
I have read the future studies literature for decades. A few years ago an alumnus suggested that my university should create a course about the future. My dean encouraged me to look into it. On reading Bishop and Hines, Teaching About the Future, I was struck by the maturity of the field, the strength of their program that they describe, and the fact that they bemoan the lack of a book that could introduce newcomers to the field. I decided that I could write such a book, combining the latest research in the field with my own understandings of interdisciplinarity, world history, economics, and political activism.
Rick's book list on the future
Why did Rick love this book?
I like the way that the author first provides a history of both the idea of the future and the field of future studies.
She shows how the field has come to appreciate that we cannot predict the future reliably, but can identify both plausible futures and desirable futures, and explore how to move from one to the other. She then explores key characteristics of plausible futures. There is a lot of information in a short book.
1 author picked The Future as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
From the beginning of time, humans have been driven by both a fear of the unknown and a curiosity to know. We have always yearned to know what lies ahead, whether threat or safety, scarcity or abundance. Throughout human history, our forebears tried to create certainty in the unknown, by seeking to influence outcomes with sacrifices to gods, preparing for the unexpected with advice from oracles, and by reading the stars through astrology. As scientific methods
improve and computer technology develops we become ever more confident of our capacity to predict and quantify the future by accumulating and interpreting patterns…
- Coming soon!