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

by Glenn Adamson

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 bookshows 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Audiobook, Social Science

352 pages, Hardcover

First published December 3, 2024

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the process of writing a history of the future, Glenn Adamson starts with the tarot card and then goes on a wide-ranging trip from visionary literature such as "Looking Backward" and "Herland," to theorists of reconstructing urban living (think Norman Bel Geddes, Lewis Mumford, and Buckminster Fuller), through the rise of "Golden Age" science fiction, operational research as exemplified by the Rand Corporation, and through the sort of "alternative" tech made popular by Stewart Brand. The culmination of this trip is reaching what seemed like the wide-open horizons of the personal computer era. An era which seems to have left us with the tyranny of the algorithm, massive invasions of privacy, and one exploitive "venture capital" scheme after another designed to loot one's savings. One would hope that "the machine stops."

As an off-set to how what seems like the bright future often just leads to a more shabby now, Adamson invests a lot of time in critiques by folks marginalized by the dominant culture; people of color, citizens of the First Nations, and women in general. This goes a long way from preventing this book simply being a history of the industrial boosterism of the past.

Adamson ends on a fairly bracing note, admitting that while the future now seems to be an increasingly unpleasant place to be, that doesn't preclude us from trying harder to keep coming up with alternatives. Towards the end, he quotes the late Octavia Butler, who currently looks as prescient as anyone has been: "Our tomorrow is the child of our today. Through thought and deed, we exert a great deal of influence over this child, even though we can't control it absolutely. Best to think about it, though. Best to try to shape it into something good. Best to do that for any child."

Though I had some familiarity with about 70% of the content of this book, which Adamson describes as the catalogue of an exhibition that never happened, I found it to be a witty and coherent mosaic that could have been put together a number of different ways. However, Adamson doesn't spend a lot of time on dystopian visions, except of the Malthusian variety, and you won't find much from folks who think that society should be organized to preserve privilege. So no Ayn Rand, no "The Turner Diaries," no rantings about the "replacement" of the White Race, and no apostles of the so-called "Dark Enlightenment." Progress might no longer represent a shining city on a hill, but it beats the hell out of the alternative.

[Nils · Rating 3 out of 5]

A kind of broad cultural and intellectual history of mostly Americans who thought about the future from the late 19th century forward. In some chapters the future drops a bit out of sight and it just becomes a general intellectual history of certain of these characters like Mabel Dodge or the Garden City movement.

[K. E. Creighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present by Glenn Adamson is packed full of facts and information on the movers and shakers of futurology. The book starts with detailing how the turn from spiritual and religious beliefs to come to terms with the future shifts to a more secular and modern understanding of the future during the first quarter of the 1900s, then ends with an open-ended but surprisingly upbeat message: “We owe the future all the enthusiasm and imagination we can summon in ourselves.” (p.267)

First, it must be emphasized that this book is at its core a history book, so it’s packed full of names, dates, events, movements, and epochs regarding futurology. It is a book about the history of futurology, and the people who grappled with it during the late 1800s to the early 2000s. It is not a manifesto or indictment for futurologists and does not provide any attempts to predict the future. It mainly grapples with the contradictions and problems notable futurologists (who are in many ways the exact opposite of dystopians) faced and explored during the specified time period.

It should also be noted that this book does not have a narrative-like structure. Instead, it reads more like a traditional history book, moving coherently from one fact and time period to the next, linearly, expertly tying a ton of sources and information together in a sequential manner. So, it will not be dry and boring as long as you are sincerely interested in learning more about the movers and shakers of futurology in the late 1800s to early 2000s, along with a lot of dates and facts too. If you are expecting anything other than that, you might be disappointed.

That said, I was more than impressed by the thoroughness and wide reach of Adamson’s sources, and how deep he dug into futurology. Bravo! I sincerely appreciated how he integrated things like the counter-culture movements of the 1960s, popular films, Indigenous practices, jazz and funk music, visual art, feminist theory, and literature, into a history of futurology that is typically dominated by humans’ complicated relationship with machines and technology and commerce (though he does cover those things too, of course). I especially appreciated the excerpts on Octavia E. Butler’s writings and interviews at the end. At times, however, the amount of data and information being shared per page and chapter was a bit overwhelming to follow, and the thread of how it all connected to futurology in the 1900s became intermittently lost.

Ultimately, there could have been entire books written about some of the topics introduced in various chapters (i.e. films and futurology in the 1900s, feminist theory and futurology in the 1900s, pop culture and futurology in the 1900s, commercial business practices and futurology in the 1900s, etc.). Which is to say that, personally, I would have appreciated the book being organized by topics instead of linearly by time, especially since conceptions of time itself are explored throughout the book and sometimes called into question on a philosophical level. Traditional historians will probably not agree with this preference, I am aware. So, if you are a tried-and-true traditional history buff, you will probably want to disregard that note. It is, however, my opinion as a general reader of history.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and would recommend it to those readers who want to learn more about the history of futurology in the late 1800s to early 1900s. It was an informative and refreshing read on futurology, all in all, and I truly appreciated its Conclusion too.

Subscribe to Daily Drafts & Dialogues to receive more book reviews and posts about reading and writing in your inbox every day: dailydraftsanddialogues.substack.com

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt meandering a lot of the time, but I enjoyed it. It's interesting hearing about different ways people have predicted the future, and the variety of futures that result from those predictions. His narration was occasionally clunky, but it was also funny to hear some exasperation leaking into his voice when he was talking about the umpteenth man who had written a book with his uncredited wife, haha. Would recommend if people are interested in the topic of retro futures.

[Chris Barsanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glenn Adamson’s absorbing survey of futurology reveals that how societies predict the future says more about the era they’re living in...

Full review is at PopMatters

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book is mostly about race conflicts in America. The book spends a paragraph on Buckminster Fuller and a chapter on conflicts with American Indians. Too much historical revisionism, not enough futurology.

[fleegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. A book about the history of looking at the future? I was so taken with the concept that I had to read it.
The book is less than 300 pages but I tell you it is jam packed with so much nerdy goodness.

[Lisa Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not at all what I was expecting, but was a thought-provoking look at how the visions of the few (futurologists and authors) effected the views of the many.

[Brandon Pomeroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great review and a strong message

[Craigtator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding how people felt about their present by analyzing their predictions of the future.

[Tyler J Hinds · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.7

[Andrea Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of futurology. Informative and entertaining.

[Desirae · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt bizarrely unfocused.

Too much of a slog.

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the future of yesterday. You could consider it a history of getting things wrong, if someone had not already made that joke.

The book does not limit itself to capital-F Futurology, Instead, it treats prediction broadly, starting with oracles and looking at anyone who has considered Kingdom Soon; some Kingdoms sooner than others.

The chapters, while still mostly chronological, are a sort of taxonomy of belief in the future, and act as a sort of thesis for the book. Grouping pundits and thinkers into Heaven and Hell (region and ideology); Machine (technocracy and the Singularity); Garden (nature); Lab ('ordinary' Futurology and the science of prediction); Party (counterculture), and Flood (post-modernism and the end of the future) reflects a different way of looking at looking at the future.

This is a bit of head-turning syncretism that in itself makes the book recommendable. Particularly when the future is so readily ceded to [insert Silicon Valley stereotype you dislike the most].

The stories here work through narrative histories of different individuals and how they fit within the subcategory, which grants the book a feeling of something like Plutarch (or even Robert Greene) in didactic biography. Stylistically it is a hoot. The author writes in a cheeky, almost snarky style, and there are a lot of funny asides. In terms of the social history itself, I felt that some of the stronger sections were those discussing Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, the progenitor of so much future, and the sections on actual futurology, specifically the aspects of the influence and interrelation to design. And to Chicagoan, the 'Garden' section is fascinating to look at from modern Urbanism. Most of the ideas herein are functionally pro-sprawl, with a view on infrastructure is either Step Three: ???? or that even by the '30s car culture was invisible and inevitable.

The wry humor has its limits. 'Party' is weak as a chapter because the author cannot even manage a waive to the positive ramifications of the various movements of rebellion. I think this is wrong for a few reasons, pointedly that there are interesting bits as to the core of contemporary life, and it is telling that the liberatory elements are shuffled off to other chapters, but the real problem is that a whole chapter of look at this fucking hippie is tiresome. The author has a weird stylistic tic that is too frequent to be unintentional, wherein each chapter has one biography too far. Each section has one person who does not fit in, or could fit in elsewhere, but instead gets a longer bio to justify their inclusion in this one. I think that the intention is like the categories in the first place, in suggesting revisions to the usual paradigm about forward lookers. It does not work stylistically because it drags the otherwise on-theme chapter in a different direction that clouds the argument.

The book's ideological groupings stand for a progression of the idea of progress, but when the writing is at its most deft is in defiance of that same system. Like one of the reasons the Bellamy section is good is its exploration of who he influenced and who those people influenced. There are a lot of connections, some unexpected, between the people described in the book, and the author points out all the departments of the Invisible College. These joins are interesting as well as useful to understanding what is going on, but it is also at odds, or in tension, with the otherwise clever way the book is structured.

Overall, it is a good intellectual history, if you accept its slanted structure or frame.

My thanks to the author, Glenn Adamson, for writing the book and to the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, for making the ARC available to me.