A Century of Tomorrows

How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present

Glenn Adamson

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Publishing USA
03 December 2024

Social & cultural history; Society & Social Sciences; Social forecasting, future studies

An acclaimed cultural historian takes readers on an intellectual thrill ride through the kaleidoscopic story of futurology, a surprisingly powerful force in the modern world.

For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests and prophets, the realm of astrologers and seers. Then, in the twentieth century, futurologists emerged, claiming that data and design could make planning into a rational certainty. Over time, many of these technologists and trend forecasters amassed power as public intellectuals, even as their predictions proved less than reliable. Now, amid political and ecological crises of our own making, we drown in a cacophony of potential futures-including, possibly, no future at all.

A Century of Tomorrows offers an illuminating account of how the world was transformed by the science (or is it?) of futurecasting. Beneath the chaos of competing tomorrows, Adamson reveals a hidden order: six key themes that have structured visions of what's next. Helping him to tell this story are remarkable characters, including self-proclaimed futurologists such as Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, as well as an eclectic array of other visionaries who have influenced our thinking about the world ahead: Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin, Shulamith Firestone and Sun Ra, Marcus Garvey and Timothy Leary, and more.

Arriving at a moment of collective anxiety and fragile hope, Adamson's extraordinary book shows how our projections for the future are, always and ultimately, debates about the present. For tomorrow is contained within the only thing we can ever truly know: today.

By: Glenn Adamson
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 242mm, Width: 164mm, Spine: 31mm
Weight: 644g
ISBN: 9781639730230
ISBN 10: 1639730230
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 03 December 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Glenn Adamson is a curator and cultural historian. His books include Craft: An American History; Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects; and The Invention of Craft. His work has been published in Art in America, Antiques, Apollo, and elsewhere. He is currently curator at large at the Vitra Design Museum, and was previously director of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He divides his time between London and the Hudson Valley.

Reviews for A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present

"""Adamson manages to discover 'making' in every aspect of our history . . . There may be no one better suited to this task."" --New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) on CRAFT ""Profound and engaging . . . Timely."" --New York Review of Books on CRAFT ""Remarkable and eminently readable."" --Christian Science Monitor on CRAFT"