H.G. Wells was acclaimed during his lifetime as one of the most original and creative thinkers of the 20th century, and retains to this day a position of considerable importance in the history of ideas. In 1928 when he wrote this cry for a new age of worldwide knowledge networking, there was no Internet. Yet Wells was already convinced that if only thinking people across the planet could somehow pull together and pool their expertise, energy, and insights into sort of "cerebrum for humanity," then the world would be a saner, safer, better, fairer place. Anyone aware of how the Internet already reflects both the vices and the virtues of society and wonders how a world-renowned visionary like H.G. Wells envisaged knowledge networking as working in practice will enjoy this book. It is a hymn to the practical possibilities of world group action.

Wagar pulls together all aspects of futures studies in this unique volume--comprising a vital introduction to, and defense of, the impressive array of futurist inquiry. The book examines how futurists think and work. It compares and analyzes their ideas on a wide range of topics, including the environment, politics, economics, war and peace, and sociocultural issues. Wagar also shows how the three ideological paradigms within the futures field, the technoliberal, the radical, and the countercultural, play a role in the study of the future. The organizing theme of this unique work by W. Warren Wagar is the way in which images of alternative futures are shaped by ideological differences in the present. Wagar identifies three principal camps of futurist thought: technoliberals, radicals, and counterculturalists. By far the largest group are the technoliberals--supporters of parliamentary democracy, civil liberties, free enterprise, and technological progress. Radicals occupy the Marxist and democratic-socialist Left, while counterculturalists espouse decentralist, eco-pacifist, and New Age values. The Next Three Futures pulls together all aspects of futures studies--comprising a vital introduction and outline of the many worlds of futurist inquiry. The book consists of two parts: the first an examination of how futurists think and work; the second a comparative and critical analysis of their ideas on a wide variety of topics. After a short prologue, the first chapter defines the scope and limitations of futures research, and discusses its chief methodologies. The next chapter gives a valuable intellectual history of futurism from its earliest origins, with special emphasis on the work of H. G. Wells. The idea of the ideological paradigm in futures studies is described in the third chapter. The following four chapters, making up part two, investigate the thinking of contemporary futurists on the environment, economic and political developments, war and peace, and societal/cultural issues. Wagar's epilogue considers the possibility that the technoliberal, radical, and countercultural futures may all lie ahead for humankind, but at different stages and times in the years to come. This highly readable volume will be of great value to students of futurism, futurists, political scientists, sociologists, economic forecasters, environmentalists, and anyone else fascinated by the study of the future.

A Science Fiction Classic
From the twentieth century's first great practitioner of the novel of ideas comes a consummate masterpiece of science fiction about a man trapped in the terror of his own creation.

H.G. Wells was acclaimed during his lifetime as one of the most original and creative thinkers of the 20th century, and retains to this day a position of considerable importance in the history of ideas. In 1928 when he wrote this cry for a new age of worldwide knowledge networking, there was no Internet. Yet Wells was already convinced that if only thinking people across the planet could somehow pull together and pool their expertise, energy, and insights into sort of cerebrum for humanity, then the world would be a saner, safer, better, fairer place. Anyone aware of how the Internet already reflects both the vices and the virtues of society and wonders how a world-renowned visionary like H.G. Wells envisaged knowledge networking as working in practice will enjoy this book. It is a hymn to the practical possibilities of world group action.

Wagar pulls together all aspects of futures studies in this unique volume--comprising a vital introduction to, and defense of, the impressive array of futurist inquiry. The book examines how futurists think and work. It compares and analyzes their ideas on a wide range of topics, including the environment, politics, economics, war and peace, and sociocultural issues. Wagar also shows how the three ideological paradigms within the futures field, the technoliberal, the radical, and the countercultural, play a role in the study of the future. The organizing theme of this unique work by W. Warren Wagar is the way in which images of alternative futures are shaped by ideological differences in the present. Wagar identifies three principal camps of futurist thought: technoliberals, radicals, and counterculturalists. By far the largest group are the technoliberals--supporters of parliamentary democracy, civil liberties, free enterprise, and technological progress. Radicals occupy the Marxist and democratic-socialist Left, while counterculturalists espouse decentralist, eco-pacifist, and New Age values. The Next Three Futures pulls together all aspects of futures studies--comprising a vital introduction and outline of the many worlds of futurist inquiry. The book consists of two parts: the first an examination of how futurists think and work; the second a comparative and critical analysis of their ideas on a wide variety of topics. After a short prologue, the first chapter defines the scope and limitations of futures research, and discusses its chief methodologies. The next chapter gives a valuable intellectual history of futurism from its earliest origins, with special emphasis on the work of H. G. Wells. The idea of the ideological paradigm in futures studies is described in the third chapter. The following four chapters, making up part two, investigate the thinking of contemporary futurists on the environment, economic and political developments, war and peace, and societal/cultural issues. Wagar's epilogue considers the possibility that the technoliberal, radical, and countercultural futures may all lie ahead for humankind, but at different stages and times in the years to come. This highly readable volume will be of great value to students of futurism, futurists, political scientists, sociologists, economic forecasters, environmentalists, and anyone else fascinated by the study of the future.

A memoir of postmodern times, cast as a history. This book is narrated by a far-future historian, Peter Jensen, who leaves this account of the world from the 1990s to the opening of the 23rd century as a gift to his granddaughter. A combination of fiction and scholarship, this edition of Wagar's speculative history of the future alternates between descriptions of world events and intimate glimpses of his fictive historian's family into the first centuries of the new millennium.