From the oracles of Ancient Greece and the astrologers of the Middle Ages to future-thinking minds of the 20th century, this book traces the evolution of futurology and its impact on the present day.
“I have chosen to tell this story, largely through character portraits of individual futurologists, an irresistible approach given their compelling diversity,” says cultural historian Glenn Adamson.
“The book is peopled with demagogues like Billy Sunday, and Marcus Garvey, who sought to blaze a narrow path to salvation; mechanistic thinkers like Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Norman Bel Geddes, who regarded utopia essentially as a design problem; singular figures like Buckminster Fuller, who sought to harmonize contrary forces, as in one of his geodesic domes; science fiction authors like Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler, who constructed beautiful thought experiments that invited readers to consider totally altered states of affairs; and visionaries like Sun Ra, whose cosmic jazz projected what it might be like to actually inhabit another world.”
His mostly chronological narrative is divided into six key themes that he sees structuring visions of the future: Heaven and Hell, Machine, Garden, Lab, Party, and Flood.
Focusing primarily on the United States and its futuristic self-perception, Adamson delves into contemporary issues such as privatized space travel, confrontations with AI, and new interpretations of American exceptionalism. And, ultimately, his book provides both a history of future-gazing prognostications and a reflection on how imagining tomorrow shapes our understanding and actions in the present.