false 6402605 1 <p>The future is not a fixed idea but a highly variable one that reflects the values of those who are imagining it. By studying the ways that visionaries imagined the future--particularly that of America--in the past century, much can be learned about the cultural dynamics of the time.</p><p>In this social history, Lawrence R. Samuel examines the future visions of intellectuals, artists, scientists, businesspeople, and others to tell a chronological story about the history of the future in the past century. He defines six separate eras of future narratives from 1920 to the present day, and argues that the milestones reached during these years--especially related to air and space travel, atomic and nuclear weapons, the women's and civil rights movements, and the advent of biological and genetic engineering--sparked the possibilities of tomorrow in the public's imagination, and helped make the twentieth century the first century to be significantly more about the future than the past.</p><p>The idea of the future grew both in volume and importance as it rode the technological wave into the new millennium, and the author tracks the process by which most people, to some degree, have now become futurists as the need to anticipate tomorrow accelerates.</p> 6591407 1 6 2009 Future: A Recent History 0 0 6 1 0 0 false false Thu Apr 16 12:38:11 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 10:10:51 -0700 2009
Future: A Recent History
By Lawrence R. Samuel (University of Texas Press)
In this exuberant chronicle, Fortune 500 consultant Lawrence Samuel traces predictions from a century of American pop culture, civics, economics, transportation, architecture, and science...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Sep 09 09:00:02 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 09:00:02 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Sep 01 14:45:21 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 14:45:21 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jul 01 04:22:27 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 04:22:27 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 30 07:46:07 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 07:46:23 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Apr 18 04:15:52 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 04:15:52 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6402605