Margolis is no stranger to controversy: as a journalist and
biographer he enjoys adopting unfashionable positions. His recent
biography of Bernard Manning attracted much comment because of its
provocative defence of the comedian against the charge of racism.
The arrestingly tiltled A Brief History of Tomorrow takes a
similary contentious stance. Margolis begins by looking at
predictions people have made about the future in areas such as
science, technology and the environment, and goes on to make a few
of his own. The standard tack in such works is to laugh at the
person who said we'd all be knee-deep in manure by the end of the
20th century, and there's a little bit of that, but Margolis is
generous enough to point out that making predictions isn't easy. He
even highlights predictions that were genuinely startling in their
accuracy, such as that of Joseph Glanvill who, in the 17th century
forecast voyages to the moon, manned flight and the greeting of the
desert. Where Margolis goes against the contemporary grain is in
his optimism about the future. He takes a dim view of those who
forecast environmental doom and gloom, arguing that there's no such
thing as global warming and that people have been inaccurately
forecasting environmental disaster for centuries. He believes that
as a result of political, social and scientific progress, we are
better off now than we ever have been. Agree with him or not, you
can't help admiring Margoli's style. This is a gloriously witty and
entertaining read, and Margolis has a lightness of touch when it
comes to scientific matters that lesser writers can only envy. Read
and enjoy. (Kirkus UK)
Unless something really remarkable happens like Armageddon or a
dot.com company declaring profits as we enter the year 2001, things
will stay pretty much as they are: images of Princess Diana will
still appear in magazines everywhere, the railways will still use
rolling stock built in the sixties, and old men driving cars will
still inexplicably wear hats and gloves. But behind the facade of
normality the future is taking shape. With Sam Goldwyn's famous
saying 'Never predict anything - especially the future' firmly in
mind, Jonathan Margolis inoculates himself against the pitfalls of
prophecy with a chastening look at the history of futurology. Then
he takes courage in both hands and sets out to describe the world
that's yet to come in the fields of medicine, mind, spirit, home,
food, work, leisure, politics, war, society, transport, environment
and space.
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