Please add any books to the bottom of this page, and feel free to give any other feedback or have conversations in the comments section at the bottom. Thank You!
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Book categories on this page:
150 Great Foresight Books - On Reserve for Foresight Development (TCH110)
Top Foresight
Science, Evolution, and Development
Technology (Engineering, Infotech, Sociotech, Cognotech, Biomedtech)
Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources
Economics, Capitalism, Finance, Globalization, and Innovation Infrastructure
Politics, Security, Democracy, Rights, Health Care, and Sustainability Infrastructure
Society (Big): Culture: Society, Ethics, Media, Art, Design, Education, Religion
Society (Med): Org: Mgmt, Org. Innov. & Entrep, Org. Sustainability & Social Responsibility, Org. Dev.
Society (Small): Personal: Family, Relationships, Careers, and Lifestyle
Multidisciplinary
Fiction
Unclassified

150 Great Foresight Books (GFB’s) - On Reserve for Foresight Development (TCH110)
Your basic Futurist's Library. Great works in Foresight Methods, Models, Compendia, and Topical Areas. Each is overviewed, handed around, and briefly discussed in class, ten per week. Used in Unit 1-4 Essays. All GFBs are on 4 Hour Reserve Checkout in the UAT Library. Most also have second (and sometimes third and fourth) copies available in the stacks for longer checkout. Click on links below for Amazon reviews. Several of these links also offer the ability to "Search Inside the Book" through your browser. This is a useful electronic research tool!

Week 1 – Intro to Futures Studies
The Pursuit of Destiny: A History of Prediction, Paul Halpern, 2000.
Great book on the success and failures of “prediction science.”
Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, Hines & Bishop, 2007
Great practical text on how organizations can prepare for the future. 36 contributors.
Advancing Futures: Futures Studies in Higher Education, James Dator, Ed., 2002.
History, courses, methods, concerns, and issues of teaching futures. 19 contributors.
A Brief History of Tomorrow: The Future Past and Present, Jonathan Margolis, 2001
Insightful and witty, “novel type” read on the wild and wooly field of futuring.
Contemporary Futurist Thought: Sci-Fi and Futures Studies, Thomas Lombardo, 2006
Good survey of the range and value of futures thinking by a futures studies professor.
Rescuing All Our Futures: The Future of Futures Studies, Ziauddin Sardar, Ed., 1999
18 futurists stress the need for non-Western cultures and concerns in futures.
Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, Joseph J. Corn, 1984
Beautiful pics of U.S. future images, discussion of the benefits and limits of visioning.
TechTV’s Catalog of Tomorrow: Trends Shaping Your Future, Andrew Zolli, Ed., 2003
100 fun two-page essays on trends and tech, looking out 5-20 years. 44 contributors.
MacMillan Atlas of the Future: 21st Century and Beyond, Ian Pearson, Ed., 1998
Maps and graphics popularizing future trends and issues for humanity. 25 contributors.
The Gaia Atlas of Future Worlds: Challenge and Opportunity, Norman Myers, 1990
Pretty atlas of trends, issues in global sustainability. Old enough do prediction-checking.

Week 2 – Evolution, Development, and the Future of Science
Decoding the Universe: The New Science of Information, Charles Siefe, 2006
Information physics is relating brains to black holes, and predicting the multiverse.
Astrobiology: A Beginners Guide, Lewis Dartnell, 2007
Intro to the new science of astrobiology: how special planets create life, on Earth and elsewhere.
Biocosm: A New Scientific Theory of Evolution, James Gardner, 2003
Argues our universe has many of the features of a biological system, and had an "intelligent" start.
The Privileged Planet: Our Anthropic Place in the Cosmos, Gonzalez and Richards, 2004
Argues that Earth is in a "special" place in the cosmos. Observer bias? How would you test this?
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo, Scott Carroll, 2006
Great intro to biological evo devo: how evolution and development interact in organisms.
Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, Simon Conway-Morris, 2003
Great intro to universal evo devo: how evolution leads to "convergent evolution" in Universe.
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, Matt Ridley, 1998
Shortoverview of how societies build cooperation and morality through collaboration.
The Next 50 Years: Science in the First Half of the 21st Century, John Brockman, Ed., 2002
25 essays on the future of the Cosmos, Math, Neurosci, Bio, Culture, Morality, and Prediction.
The End of Science: Facing the Limits of the [Human-Only] Scientific Age, John Horgan, 1997
Controversial, fascinating arguments that science is running into human limits. Will AI's do better?
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan, 1997
A call to scientific and "evidence-based" thinking to help solve humanity's problems.

Week 3 – Accelerating Change and the Future of Technology, Part I
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, David Christian, 2004
Good overview of the "Big Picture" of accelerating change, from a universal perspective.
Society and Technological Change, 5th. Ed., Rudi Volti, 2005
Good STS textbook on the impact of technological change on society in many ways and over centuries.
The Change Function: Why Some Technol. Take Off & Others Crash, Pip Coburn, 2006
Why people don't try new things until the perceived benefits outweigh the pain of change.
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intell., Ray Kurzweil, 2000
Great insights on tech acceleration. Proposes that human-intell. computers will arrive by mid-century.
Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Adam Greenfield, 2006
Explains how computers are becoming miniaturized, interconnected, and embedded everywhere.
Nanotechnology: Science, Innovation, and Opportunity, Lynn Foster, Ed., 2005
Great introduction to the many opportunities and challenges of nanotech for humans and the world.
Hacking Matter: The Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms, Wil McCarthy, 2004
A sometimes-crazy romp through the really powerful, really weird world of "Inner Space."
Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Human Enhancement, Joel Garreau, 2006
Outlines three key social paths for the future of GRIN (Genetics, Robotics, Info, Nano) technologies.
Intervention: The Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Biotech, Denise Caruso, 2006
Good exploration of the risks of biotech, and the social values that limit its adoption.
Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, Bill McKibben, 2004
A strong call for preserving human values, identity, and culture in our rapid technological age.

Week 4 – Accelerating Change and Future of Technology, Part II
Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorg., Greg Stock, 1993
A very good book on human-machine symbiosis, written from a biological perspective.
Visions of Technology: A Century of Debate about Machines, Richard Rhodes, 2000
Vignettes on the social impact of 20th century tech change, by an emininent historian.
Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, David Nye, 2006
Key Q's about tech: Is it predictable? Does it control us? How does it change work? Culture?
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman, 1993
Great exposition of the ways technology weakens society, and ideas on how to fight back.
Technology and the Future, Albert Teich, 10th Ed, AAAS, 2005
Good range of mostly conservative views on tech futures and social responses.
Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, Edward Castronova, 2006
Social and economic trends in VWs, games, and the coming Metaverse economy.
Deception: Pakistan, the US and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007
WMDs are a major problem. US policy short-sightedness has proliferated nuke tech globally.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Catastrophes of the 21st Century, James Kunstler, 2006
Doomsaying that peak oil and climate change can't be fixed fast enough to prevent collapse.
The Bottomless Well: Why We Will Never Run out of Energy, Huber and Mills, 2006
Techno-optimist, utopian ideas that new tech and free markets solve all energy problems.
The Two Faces of Tomorrow, James Hogan, Yukinobu Hoshino, 2006
Fictional account of one of the great questions of 21C tech: How do we trust the coming AI?

Week 5 – Global Trends, Scenarios, and Models
Global Trends 2015: A Dialog About the Future, CIA, 2005
Excellent, concise, CIA-compiled database of important global trends and implications.
Modernization, Cultural Change, & Democracy: Values & Devel., Ronald Inglehart, 2005
Summary of 40 years of research showing how development creates a common set of values.
The Transparent Society: Technology, Privacy and Freedom, David Brin, 1999
Balanced treatment of the upsides and downsides of our accelerating global transparency.
Which World?: Scenarios for the 21st Century, Allen Hammond, 1998
Three institutions look out to 2050 and paint three different scenarios for the global future.
The Global Technology Revolution 2020: Executive Summary, RAND, 2006
Great overview of trends, challenges, and options in nano, bio and info technologies.
Shell Global Scenarios to 2025, Jeroen van der Veer, 2005
Energy, resources, economic, and political scenarios from Shell, a leading scenario developer.
Exploring and Shaping International Futures, Barry Hughes, 2006
Modeling system for International Futures. Good in general, but not sufficiently technology-aware.
The State of the World 2007, Worldwatch Institute, 2007
Annual report on the state of the world from environment to human rights. Sustainability focused.
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the State of the World, Bjorn Lomborg, 2001
A critical look at claims that our global environment is falling apart. Evidence for optimism.
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright, 2001
Makes the case that non-zero sum (positive sum) interactions drive much of human activity.

Week 6 – Global Problems and Priorities
Mapping the Global Future: The National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, NIC, 2005
Great brief illustrated summary of future global scenarios, from the National Intelligence Council.
From Third World to First, The Singapore Story: 1965-2000, Lee Kuan Yew, 2000
How "authoritarian capitalism" enabled rapid economic development. A model for others?
Environment: An Introductory Textbook, 5th Edition, Peter Raven, 2005
College textbook on our natural environment, a complex system we still don't understand well.
Wilson's Ghost: Reducing Conflict and Catastrophe in 21C, McNamara & Blight, 2001
Brilliant book on the global context enabling the9/11 attacks, and future US policy options.
Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity, UNDP, 2006
Goals and progress in global development per the United Nations Development Program.
How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, Bjorn Lomborg, 2006
Priorities for global development from Lomborg's "Copenhagen Consensus."
Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, Alex Steffen, 2006
Tools and strategies for achieving a "bright, green future." Sustainability and innovation.
Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, Robert Neuwirth, 2006
Issues and futures of the world's rapidly-growing slums, by a journalist who has lived in them.
The End of Poverty, Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey Sachs, 2006
Proposes new levels of political, corporate, and individual participation in global development.
The White Man’s Burden: Why Western Aid Has Done So Little Good, Bill Easterly, 2007
Shows how we hurt the developing world in trying to aid them, and the difficulty of the problem.

Week 7 – Economics and the Future of Capitalism
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, & Econ of Prosperity, William Baumol, 2007
Explains the four major types of capitalism. Only one, entrepreneurial capitalism, is ideal.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, Thomas Friedman, 1999
Great intro to accel. globalization and its new-world vs. old-world tensions. Written before 9/11.
One Nation, Underprivileged, Mark Robert Rank, 2005
Huge social costs of undereducating and underemploying American poor and immigrants.
China Shakes the World: The Challenge for America, James Kynge, 2006
Explores future impacts of Chinese economic, political, and social power on the world &the US.
Three Billion New Capitalists: Great Shift of Wealth & Power East, Clyde Prestowitz, 2006
Issues of integrating a growing, Networked Asia (China, India, SE Asia) into global economy.
Information Rules: A Guide to the Network Economy, Shapiro and Varian, 1998
Good overview of the economic, info, and social changes in the Network Society.
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Hawken and Lovins, 2000
Eloquent call for a future of sustainable economics and green business: natural capitalism.
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and World Poverty, Muhammad Yunus, 2003
By the Nobel-winning founder of Grameen Bank, pioneers of microcredit for the poor.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: End Poverty Thru Profits, C.K. Prahalad, 2006
Opportunities in Bottom of Pyramid (BoP) capitalism, from microcredit to microconsumption.
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Joel Bakan, 2005
Considers weaknesses of the modern corporate structure and possibilities for reform.

Week 8 – Politics and the Future of Security and Democracy
Lies My Teacher Told Me: What Your History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen, 2007
Brilliant critique of the "feel good myths" we learn in history class, and ideas for change.
The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Fareed Zakaria, 2007
Explores the limits and weaknesses of democracy and the many ways it can become illiberal.
The American Anomaly: U.S. in Comparative Perspective, Raymond Smith, 2007
Explains why, constitutionally, the U.S. is less democratic than other leading industrial nations.
America (The Book) Teacher’s Ed: A Guide to Democracy Inaction, Jon Stewart, 2006
Hilarious intro to American history and political democracy, warts and all. Comedy Central.
Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, Kevin Phillips, 2003
Why the rich are not conservatives (low government) but plutocrats (use govt to their advantage).
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel Huntington, 1998
Analyzes the world as a set of eight cultures increasingly conflicting over religion and dogma.
Lucifer Principle: An Expedition into the Forces of History, Howard Bloom, 1997
Argues well that evil (lying, violence, etc.) plays an essential social and biological role.
A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, Ackerman and Duvall, 2001
Chronicles the rising power of nonviolent mass resistance to remove or reform governments.
The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the 21st Century, Thomas Barnett, 2005
Combating disconnectedness (tech, econ, & cultural) as a key U.S. global security strategy.
Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, Philip Tetlock, 2005
Great study of the repeating patterns, biases, and limits of political (and other) prediction.

Week 9 – Culture, Media and Education in a Network Society
The First Measured Century: Trends in America, 1900-2000, Theodore Caplow et. al., 2000
One hundred years of social and economic trends, with graphics and engaging commentary.
The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, Mitchell Stephens, 1998
Charts the rise of moving images and decline of the printed word, and some implications.
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam, 2001
Great stats on the 50-year deterioration of U.S. social life, with some ideas for solutions.
The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21st Century, Robert McChesney, 2005
Great articles on massive media centralization and corporatization, and proposals for reform.
The Future of Ideas: The Nature of The Commons in a Connected World, Larry Lessig, 2002
How large corporations are stifling public innovation and privatizing our online information commons.
The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel, 1998
The politics of change, and conflicts over creativity, enterprise, and progress.
Cuture Jam: Reversing America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge, Calle Lasn, 2000.
The power and addictions of brands, conformity, and overconsumption in a global corporate age.
Declining By Degrees: Higher Education at Risk, Richard Hersh et. al., 2006
Documents the retreat from challenging and affordable higher ed as a 20th century "social contract."
Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, Cass Sunstein, 2006
How free and open online information, aggregation, and markets are accelerating global knowledge.
The Fourth Turning: Cycles of History and America’s Destiny, Strauss and Howe, 1997
Historical generational (cycle) theory that the US is "on the verge of crisis." We shall see.

Week 10 – Biz-Org Leadership, Innovation, Learning, and Predicting
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, Jim Collins, 2001
Careful research featuring 11 big companies that manage to greatly improve, year after year.
Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition, Everett Rogers, 2003
The classic text on innovation diffusion, how new ideas and tech spread into a culture, or don't.
The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clay Christensen, 2003
Why Big Co's slow down market (and their own) innovation, and how "disruptive innovation" works.
The Art of the Start: A Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, Guy Kawasaki, 2004
Great advice on planning, raising money, hiring, and other issues of starting any business project.
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few, James Surowiecki, 2005
How groups can beat their best individuals for cognition, coordination, and cooperation.
The Fifth Discipline: The Art of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge, 2006
How to build continual learning, "the only sustainable competitive advantage," into any org.
The Difference: How Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, & Societies, Scott Page, 2007
Why cognitive and experience diversity on your team beats groups of like-minded experts.
Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation, Kees van der Heijden, 2005
How to use the futures tool of scenario planning (possible futures) to improve business strategy.
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, Peter Bernstein, 1998
Quant. probability has led to econometrics, insurance, forecasting, and better foresight.
Supercrunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted, Ian Ayres, 2007
The growth of detailed data sets lets analysts make previously impossible predictions.

Week 11 – Biz-Org Planning, Consensus-Building, Benefiting, and Metrics
Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present, Bob Johansen, 2007
Practical ways for orgs to develop a "future sense" and improve their plans and strategy.
Out of Control: Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, Kevin Kelly, 1995
How our connected and complex world can be understood as a biological, evolving system.
Inevitable Surprises: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century, Peter Schwartz, 2004
A leading futurist uses scenario planning to explore both the expected and unpredictable future.
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Don Tapscott, 2006
The economic and social benefits of global online collaboration for people and companies.
Hard Facts, Half-Truths, & Total Nonsense: Evidence-Based Mgmt, Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006
How to analyze business management practices using surveys, science, and evidence.
Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change, Bob Seidensticker, 2006
Argues well against the idea that technology change is particularly fast or important today.
Megamistakes: Forecasting and the Myth of Rapid Tech Change, Steven Schnaars, 1989
Collection of bad forecasts by think tanks, researchers, and politicians, w/ recommendations.
Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology, James Chiles, 2002
50 famous catastrophes, and ways that they could have been prevented with better systems.
Future Search: Finding Common Ground in Orgs & Communities, Marvin Weisbord, 2000
A future search conference helps organizational stakeholders work to chart a better future.
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough, 2002
Using industrial design to greatly improve sustainability and "eco-effectiveness" in our world.

Week 12 – Personal and Career Creativity and Visioning
Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Intelligence, Andy Clark, 2004
Why you are already a "cyborg" and will get even more intimately connected to all your tech.
The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, John Maxwell, 2007
Qualities and habits that make you the kind of person whose ideas others want to follow.
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, Guy Claxton, 2000
Cog science says logic and reason aren't enough. We need slow, intuitive, nonlinear thinking too.
Authentic Happiness: Positive Psychology and Your Potential, Martin Seligman, 2002
From the founder of science of positive psychology (how to thrive, love, and be happy).
Finding Flow: Psych. of Engagement with Everyday Life, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, 1998
Proven tips on creating flow: a psychological state of ease, focus, happiness, and productivity.
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudosci. and Superstitions, Michael Shermer, 2002
Covers our modern superstitions. Shows the value of skepticism and evidence-based thinking.
When Prophecy Never Fails: Myth and Reality in a UFO Group, Diane Tumminia, 2005
Great expose of how wishful thinking causes us to deny reality. We all do this to some extent.
No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, Naomi Klein, 2002
Brands increasingly dominate public life, narrow our choices and our thinking. Tips on resisting.
50 Facts That Should Change the World, Jessica Williams, 2004
Some fascinating stats, many addressable by technology. Which ones will we deal with?
Fifty-Two Simple Ways to Make a Difference, Paul Simon, 2004
Small things are really the big things, in the end. Some powerful ways to be a better person.

Week 13 – Personal and Career Learning and Predicting
Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, K. Anders Ericsson, 2006
"Natural" talent is highly overrated. Experts are nearly always made, not born. Anyone can be one.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, 2004
Each habit can take years to master, but becoming an expert in these is a key to personal power.
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Who We Are, Frans De Waal, 2006
Human nature is a blend of chimpanzee and bonobo, of competition and cooperation. Stay blended.
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, Daniel Goleman, 2007
How the choice, care, and feeding of our relationships determines our intelligence.
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Philip Zimbardo, 2007
How situations, environments, can change our ethics. Why our environment matters.
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out as They Do, Judith Rich Harris, 1998
Shows the huge effect of our peer groups on our success in life. Choose your friends wisely!
Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers, Neufeld and Mate, 2006
Peer attachment in 1st world cultures squelches individuality, creativity, intelligence. How to fix that.
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Helps the Future, Neil Postman, 2000
Bringing Enlightenment values (intellection, history, logic, rhetoric) back into the 21st century.
The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career, Nicholas Lore, 1998
Through goalsetting, list making, and other techniques, find your ideal career and make it happen.
Do What You Are: Discover Your Career thru Personality Type, Paul &Barbara Tieger, 2001
Using personality profiling to find industries, careers, and occupations that match your strengths.

Week 14 – Personal and Career Planning and Negotiating
Everything's an Argument - With Readings, Andrea Lunsford et. al., 2006
An excellent and visual introduction to argument and rhetoric, foundational skills for all of us.
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, Richard Neustadt, 1986
How to best use historical knowledge to improve decision making. A classic.
How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Reason in Life, Thomas Gilovich, 1993
The limits of logic and psychology in understanding our complex, evolutionarily contingent world.
Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, John Hammond, 2002
Systematic approaches to making better-considered choices. Lots of great case examples.
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz, 2005
Explains how overanalysis and abundance can rob us of flexibility and satisfaction.
How Full is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Work and Life, Rath and Clifton, 2007
Explores the foundation of social intelligence: creating positive social interactions.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher, 1991
Very readable text on achieving win-win negotiations in workplace and home.
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, Douglas Stone, 2000
When we put off the most important conversations, everyone suffers. How to fix that.
What You Can Change & What You Can’t: A Guide to Self Improvmt, Martin Seligman, 2007
Common psychological disorders and how to self-treat them. Practical personal psychology.
Never Eat Alone: Success, One Relationship at a Time, Keith Ferrazzi, 2005
The importance of defining who you are, trusting others, and networking for a clear objective.

Week 15 – Personal and Career Benefiting and Measuring
One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, Robert Maurer, 2004
How to face fears that block change, by making small, measurable steps in the right direction.
The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Inner Strength, Karen Reivich, 2003
A key empowering habit of mind. How to keep perspective, not overreact, and bounce back.
The Survivor Personality: How to Get Better at Handling Adversity, Al Siebert, 1996
Some crumble under pressure and others get stronger. How to get better at the latter option.
The Power of Full Engagement: A Personal Energy Management System, Tony Schwartz, 2004
Skill at energy management complements time, space, money, knowledge, and process mgmt.
Fooled by Randomness: The Role of Chance in Life and Markets, Nassim Taleb, 2005
Humans are pattern recognizers. We often see pattern where none exists. How to minimize that.
The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, George Kinder, 2000
Stages of psych development in relation to money. Which are you presently "in"? Brilliant book.
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing, Benjamin Graham, 2003
The classic in value investing. A book for true investors, foresighted people with long-term plans.
Socially Responsible Investing: Making a Difference & Making Money, Amy Domini, 2000
How to put your money where your values are. Investing as a way to improve the world.
Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth, Kathleen Adams, 1990
Well-regarded book on personal journaling as a tool for self-understanding and personal mastery.
CrazyBusy: Strategies For Handling Your Fast-Paced Life, Edward Hallowell, 2006
How to manage culturally induced ADD, 24/7 accessibility, and modern expectations.



Other Nonfiction Great Foresight Books (GFBs) and Book Sites
In Top, STEEPCOP, Multidisciplinary, and Fiction Categories
Place them in alpha order under each category, please.

Top Foresight Books and Book Sites
50 Facts That Should Change the World, Jessica Williams, 2004
Perhaps 35 of these 50 stats are offensive or angering to varying degrees. The stats and their associated commentary make you motivated to change them. The other third (things like plastic surgery rates) are offensive or not depending in your values and political persuasion. Many of these problems will very likely be greatly improved in coming decades. Thanks to Disinformation.com for this cool book!
A Brief History of the Future, Oona Strathern, 2007
A fast-reading, excellent overview of the history of foresight and prediction in human civilization, from the Oracles at Delphi 800 BCE to the modern foresight professional. As both a journalist and a successful female professional futurist working in a European futures agency, Oona has created a very well written book and brings a much-needed female and European perspective to the history and prospects of the foresight profession.
CIA World Factbook 2008, Central Intelligence Agency, 2007
Great source of country information. Also available online for free.
Science and Human Values, Jacob Bronowski, 1990
Science today is largely silent on human values, a subject it remains a long way from understanding. Religion, tradition, and ideology powerfully fill this void today, speaking to issues of great value and importance to each of us. Yet science is a profoundly humanizing enterprise, and has been central to the elevation of human culture. Bronowski helps us understand both left-brained logic and right-brained creativity, both subjective introspection and objective science as complementary habits of truth.
State of the Future 2006, State of the Future / "Millennium" Project (an Annual)
An annual book that analyzes and evaluates possible global prospects for humanity. It would likely be useful students wishing to find more sources for an essay or paper as well as for students who wish to learn more about future global scenarios, sciences and environmental scenarios. - Ryan J
The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria, 2008
Great portrayal of "the rise of the rest." The most powerful global political and economic trends are not that America is slipping into ruin, but that it's finally many parts of the less developed world's turn to make the great strides we made earlier. The US is saddled with a 'do-nothing' political system, controlled by corporate interests that have been more economically powerful than governments since the 1950's, while the best of the rest of the world, China in particular, India to a lesser degree, and a number of other developing nations are seeing double digit economic growth, and will likely continue to for the next few decades, as they become innovators in the global economy. There is much we could do to improve our own state, but much that will continue to get better in spite of us as well. It's time to recognize the great power shift taking place, and recognize that for the most part, this is creating a stronger and far less American global economic network, though corporate globalization still is significantly less socially responsible and accountable than it must be in coming generations.


Science, Evolution, and Development Books and Book Sites
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking, 1988
This popular science book explains a wide range of topics in cosmology and modern physics. Although it is mainly a book about the "present", it also discusses the future of the field of physics and how it might affect humanity as a whole.
Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, Roger Lewin, 2000
Global Brain: Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, Howard Bloom, 2001
Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, Jim Al-Khalili, 2004
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How it Changed the World, Carl Zimmer, 2005
How the theory of mind has slowly progressed from immaterial, residing in the heart, to material, residing in the embodied nervous system. A fantastic story, ranging from Aristotle to the present day. It centers around the work of 17th century anatomist and early scientist Thomas Willis.
The Elegant Universe: Superstrings and Hidden Dimensions, Brian Greene, 2000
The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot, 1991
What if all the separate images we see virtually every moment of our waking lives were actually part of the same whole? What if every mind was connected and inseparable from every other mind? And what if the universe were a projection of our consciousness? Psychological synchronicities and previously inexplicable phenomena would be easier to understand, the findings of quantum physicists and mystics would begin to merge, and the world would be a less forbidding and lonely place. Michael Talbot argues for the idea that what we see in our limited three-dimensional view is actually a hologram created by interactions occurring in a broader set of dimensions (in the multiverse). Talbot bases much of his thesis on David Bohm's life work in quantum physics, but draws also on the work of psychiatrist Stanislav Grof and neuroscientist Karl Pribram (who believes that the human mind is a holographic construct of the brain). This fascinating book bridges the worlds of science and metaphysics and offers plausible hypotheses some of which may, in time, become accepted as fact.
The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century, David Salsburg, 2002
Great intro to the way statistics and probability math and models have led to great leaps in the search for scientific truth over the last hundred years. These mathematical methods are nothing less than humanities first great successful effort at building a "prediction science." Discovering and verifying probability distributions in complex systems is an excellent way to discover hidden order in the universe. The actuarial industry is just one of many that have been able to use these tools, approximate as they are, to very effectively manage the future in our partially chaotic world.
The Three Cultures: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities in the 21st Century, Jerome Kagan, 2008
Updates C.P. Snow's famous 1959 lecture on the "Two Cultures" of the 20th century, the sciences vs. arts and humanities, and the great divide between them. Since then social complexity has grown and a true third culture, the social sciences, has emerged. This culture is comprised of fields such as sociology, political science, economics, psychology, anthropology and yes, futures studies (foresight). Kagan summarizes the contributions of the social sciences and humanities to our understanding of human nature and questions the popular belief that biological processes are the main determinant of variation in human behavior. The world gets more complex every decade, doesn't it? Fascinating.

Technology (Engineering, Infotech, Sociotech, Cognotech, Biomedtech) Books and Book Sites
Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Progressives, Pete Shanks, 2005
A nice intro to the many limits of biotech, and the social values that limit its adoption as well.
Love+Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy, 2008.
Reports on the very long history and possible future of human-robot relationships. Fascinating. As robots get smarter and smarter, will more people have more relationships with them? Old people and kids already have robot pets today. Will human-to-human relationships suffer or get better as a result? Will people eventually be allowed to marry their robots, when they get sentient enough? What else might happen that we need to think about?
Massive Change and the Institute without Boundaries, Bruce Mau, 2004
Somewhat utopian but inspiring and very nicely illustrated manifesto on how better design can fundamentally improve our world.
Persistent Forecasting of Disruptive Technologies, US National Academies, 2009
Important new work on the forecasting of emergent technologies. From the Preface: "Technological innovations are key causal agents of surprise and disruption. These innovations, and the disruption they produce, have the potential to affect people and societies and therefore government policy, especially policy related to national security. To aid in the development of forecasting methodologies and strategies, the Committee on Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies of the National Research Council (NRC) was funded by the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) Defense Warning Office (DWO) to provide an analysis of disruptive technologies."
Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Hans Moravec, 1998
For more on the long history and possible future of human-robot relationships, read the fascinating Love+Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, David Levy, 2008.
The Future of Technology, Tom Standage, Ed., 2005
Insightful but circumscribed survey of the 10-year future of consumer, info, nano, and biotech, from an insightful editor at The Economist.
The Spike: Impact of Rapidly Advancing Technologies, Damien Broderick, 2002
Visions of Technology: A Century of Debate about Machines, Richard Rhodes, 2000
What Will Be: How Information Will Change Our Lives, Michael Dertouzos, 1997
Why Things Bite Back: Unintended Consequences of Tech, Edward Tenner, 1997
How technology trades big life-threatening problems with slower-acting, more complex ones.
The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, Marcia Angell, 2004
Brilliant expose of the largest 'nanotechnology' companies on the planet today, the pharmaceutical companies. Want to know how big they really are? In 2002, the total profits of the ten drug companies on the U.S. Fortune 500, $36 billion, was more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses on the list, combined ($34 billion). Read this book to understand how technology, in well defined applications (in this case, for human consumption for medical purposes) can be entirely captured, controlled, and stifled by big business. Fortunately the governments of some countries, particularly in Europe, are too strong to be captured by the drug companies. Unfortunately that hasn't been true here since the 1970's. The irony is that the biggest of these companies are based in Europe. But in 2002 they made half ($200B) of their their total world revenues off the U.S. consumer, who is bombarded daily by drug-pushing ads in all the media, unlike in most European countries, where marketing regulations are far more protective of the unwashed consumer, and where the citizenry are much more skeptical of drugmakers claims.

Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Books and Book Sites
An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming, Al Gore, 2006
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, Bjorn Lomborg, 2007
Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, Mark Maslin, 2004
Quick and very brief intro to the complexities of global warming forecasts, and the political positions involved.
Limits To Growth, Meadows, Meadows and Randers, 1979
Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update, Meadows and Randers, 2004
Silent Spring (Special Edition), Rachel Carson, 1974/2002
The 2030 Spike: Countdown to Global Catastrophe, Colin Mason, 2003
The Bottomless Well: Why We Will Never Run out of Energy, Huber and Mills, 2006
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Catastrophes of the 21st Century, James Kunstler, 2006

Economics, Capitalism, Finance, Globalization, and Innovation Infrastructure Books and Book Sites
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Niall Ferguson, 2008
Brilliant analysis that "follows the money" behind so many of the major events of Western civilization. Helps you understand the US's present debt-slavery to China, the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, and our loss of national manufacturing and technical productivity capacity. All these things are consequences of the rise of an unregulated corporate class that captured US government in the mid 20th century and created vast wealth for those at the top (for time) but far less for the country as a whole (and greater rich poor divide, unlike other developed nations). Until we use government to reprioritize the country to technical capacity increase rather than GDP increase, and rationalize the rich-poor divide, we can expect more of the same. Fortunately New Asia and Old Europe aren't following our sad script. (John Smart)
Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, Peter Barnes, 2006
Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen, 2000
Globalization and its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz, 2003
Miniatlas of Global Development, World Bank, 2004
Very small handbook of goals and progress in global development per the World Bank.
Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, Thomas K. McCraw, 2007
Schumpeter is perhaps our greatest economist to date in the area of innovation studies. He understands deeply why a healthy economy needs what he calls "creative destruction," or the ability of the large companies to regularly fail, be downsized, merge, or otherwise lose their primacy, and for the most innovative small and midsize companies to move up the ranks. This process seems messy but only economies that are healthy enough to allow a good degree of creative destruction will thrive in the long run. Many are not, as big business has both the economic means and a big economic incentive (it makes more money for the executives and the shareholders, in the short term) to eliminate competition, and slow down innovation, and change the rules in their favor, wherever possible.
The City in 2050: Creating Blueprints for Change, Urban Land Institute, 2008
ULI is the world's leading land development organization. A rare and fascinating, very long-range look at the changes facing metropolitan areas, illustrated with interesting facts and forward-looking charts on topics such as the impact of capital markets, climate change, sustainability, transportation and infrastructure needs, demographic trends, housing, retail, and technology.
The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Yergin and Stanislaw, 1999
Epic account of the 20th century battle between governmental control and the free marketplace.
The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity, Peter Schwartz, 2001
A leading futurist gives his rationale for why it's reasonable to expect unrivaled economic expansion all over the planet over the next 20 years. This scenario seems reasonable for New Asia, but is quite optimistic for the US given trends in recent decades.
The Future of Money, Benjamin Cohen, 2006
Chronicles the steadily decreasing number of global currencies. Like languages, weaker national currencies have been progressively disappearing, either tying their monetary supplies to stronger currencies (dollar, euro, yen, etc.) as globalization advances, or "dollarizing" them (pegging their currency to one of these global currencies in fixed ratios). Cohen proposes this currency contraction trend may soon reverse, but I think he's wrong. He notes that the internet economy will enable many new corporate e-currencies, and that nations and ethnic groups will seek to maintain and expand their currencies for emotional and independence reasons. James Dorn of the Cato Institute has made a similar prediction in The Future of Money in the Information Age, 1997. If such predictions came true they would be an example of internet-aided global pluralism. I would like to believe them, except that when you want to make a new currency (if you are a corporation) or just keep your own (if you are a small country) you are competing against the global banking infrastructure and central banks of all the leading governments. It seems more likely that the 21st century money system has acquired a developmental path dependency. Effective money must be both a reliable store of value and a trusted medium of exchange. Any competing new form of money, though it can be easily created as a store of value by corporations (such as Linden Dollars in Second Life, Ithaca Hours in NY, or any corporate scrip) needs to develop widespread trust, and be able to police counterfeiters, before it becomes a broad medium of exchange. Will the world's leading banks and countries mismanage our existing currencies to such an extent that we no longer view them as the most reliable stores of value and mediums of exchange? Will they sit by as other competing online currencies emerge? Unlikely. It is true that countries from the US to Russia to China implicitly tax (take value from) their citizens every year through their national money supplies, by growing them at rates like 11% (US), 19% (China) and even 50% (Russia) a year in recent years, and always at a rate that exceeds the annual GDP growth of the country in question (in the examples above, US 3%, China 10%, Russia 6%). But how onerous to the citizens is this "money supply tax" in a world of accelerating productivity, automation, sci-tech development, and persistent deflation in the cost of all information-related global goods? Libertarians eloquently point out the undemocratic nature of this state of affairs, yet most of us allow this implicit tax as long as the global financial system doesn't melt down too badly, and our standard of living goes up more years than it goes down. Today we have more choices for what currencies and investments we keep our deposits in than ever before, but only a few keep our assets in the most fiscally responsible national currencies or inflation-proof commodities at any point in time. In a future where citizens are significantly more educated (first by their electronic networks and eventually, by their artificially intelligent digital assistants), and as banking, credit and microcredit become increasingly democratized, I believe we will see both more banking and currency choice, which will become important regulatory forces in a digitally democratic future. But if rapid economic growth continues, the continued centralization of currencies seems very likely, and democratic control over our global monetary and financial systems will remain underdeveloped for decades to come.- JS
The Future of Work: The New Order of Business, Tom Malone, 2004
Explores how networks are flattening, distributing, and virtualizing business, and implications.
The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and Economics, Eric Beinhocker, 2006
Masterful look at the economics ofchange and innovation, in the tradition of Joseph Schumpeter.
The World Economy: Historical Statistics, DCS, Angus Maddison, 2003
Thousand-year estimates on global economic growth, around the world. Amazing topsight on the accelerating engine of change, since 1850, that is capitalism. Angus Maddison isa rare expert in this topic.

Politics, Security, Democracy, Rights, Health Care, and Sustainability Infrastructure Books and Book Sites
Deception: Pakistan, the US, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007
Dynamics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, 1985
Great book on nonviolent resistance campaigns. "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mohandas Ghandi. Sharp's book and US State Dept aid were used by Optor in their successful student-led voter rebellion against Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosovec.
Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense, David Kay Johnston, 2007
Excellent investigative journalism by a talented investigative reporter on the way the wealthiest leaders of industry use federal, state, and local governments to shift major costs and risks to the taxpayer. Documents the ways that competition is not a level playing field in the modern US democracy. How do we fix this problem? By caring about it, counting it, making it transparent, and then generating a consensus for action. It may take a generation or two before the average US citizen knows enough and cares enough about these issues to vote for a freer, fairer, and more competitive nation. If we had to continue to depend on human beings in our decaying educational institutions to educate the voters of tomorrow, the future of our democracy might be grim. But if our internet keeps getting smarter at an accelerating rate, there will come a time, probably within this next generation, where every one of us will have artificial intelligence advising us on our vote, and on how to spend our money, in ways that best reflect our values (the "Valucosm"). In that kind of superempowered world, democracy seems likely to swing back to serving the citizens more than it does today.
Human Security Brief 2006, Human Security Report Project, 2007
Independent tracking of interstate and intrastate conflict and organized violence against civilians. Documents the steadily decreasing incidence rates of global violence in the last decade, anomalous and well-publicized outliers like the global Salafi jihad and the second Iraq War notwithstanding. Develops the concept of "human security" (security of individuals) as a complementary goal to national security (security of the state).
Making a Killing: The Business of War, Center for Public Integrity (CPI), 2002
Two year, $600K 11 part investigation by the CPI's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into the business of war, arms trade, defense contracting, and other forms of monetized conflict. The ICIJ found that "a handful of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this war commerce – a growth industry whose bottom line never takes into account the lives it destroys."
Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel, 2005
"An astonishing anthology of highbrow meditations on culture and politics by world-class writers and intellectuals such as Richard Powers, Peter Sloterdijk and Richard Rorty, complete with lavish art." MTP looks at politics as operating "in the realm of things." Many kinds of assemblies "gather a public around things -- scientific laboratories, supermarkets, churches," and politics also involves disputes around natural resources like rivers, landscapes, and air. Authors examine the "technologies, interfaces, platforms, networks, and mediations that allow things to be made public."
No Place for Amateurs: How Political Consultants are Reshaping American Democracy, Dennis Johnson, 2007
Details the massive growth in special interest lobbies in US politics in the last two generations. A ratio of 150 lobbyists to one politician, cushy jobs for politicians in these firms and on big business boards afterward and other examples of institutionalized corruption that are legal in our current environment pretty much ensures plutocratic politics. Essential reading.
Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now, Mark Satin, 2004
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post-Cold War, Robert Kaplan, 2001
Great book on how democracy comes slowly in the developing world, and how the best thing in many emerging nations may be to support "enlightened dictators" as long as they are engaged in economic liberalization and are publicly committed to slow but obvious political liberalization. Kaplan also notes that unless we deal now with the problems of the developing world, we will see new forms of global resistance, possibly worse than Al Qaeda.
The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama, 2006
The Great Big Book of Tomorrow: A Treasury of Cartoons, Tom Tomorrow, 2003
The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Benjamin Friedman, 2005
Analysis of the value of economic growth to creating a healthy democracy. Individuals and societies are more trusting, more inclusive, more open to change when they see their and their children's futures as both progressing and secure. During economic stagnation and downturns, democratic institutions suffer. Average full-time incomes for Americans have fallen 15% in real terms since 1975, and Friedman sees this as one key reason our democracy and communities have weakened over this period.
The One-Hour Activist: Fifteen Ways to Fight for Your Issues, Christopher Kush, 2004
Quick grassroots actions that persuade lawmakers to listen. There's no good reason to be passive in the networked society. Find others, make change.
What If’s? Of American History, Robert Crowley, 2004


Society (Big): Culture: Society, Ethics, Media, Art, Design, Education, Religion Books and Book Sites
A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber, 2007
"A series of original views on many topics of current controversy, including gender wars, multiculturalism, modern liberation movements, and the conflict between various approaches to spirituality." Includes a valuable systems theory of human philosophy of thought (the Four Quadrants/Integral theory).
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, John de Graaf, 2005
Great book on the cultural excesses of American society: consumption overload, debt, waste, anxiety, self-indulgence, and apathy for the non-self.
America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future, Educational Testing Service, 2007
A forecast that in the US, several long term forces 1) declining and uncompetitive math and reading skills, 2) increasing need for literacy and higher education to compete in the information economy, 3) major demographic shifts (legal and illegal immigration), and 4) a widening rich-poor divide are all converging to create a "perfect storm" of greatly declining US educational effectiveness, greatly lower workforce competitiveness, and increasing class inequity in coming years. The report says that unless we change course America will have a highly stratified society in the next generation: a well-educated, well paid top tier, a small and shrinking middle class, and a large uncompetitive and marginally literate underclass.
Copyrights and Copywrongs: Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity, Siva Vaidhyanathan, 2003
The history and evolution of copyright, how it came to be corporate controlled, and strategies and solutions for improving its public service.
Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, Christopher Lasch, 1979/1991
Classic futurist work that addressed then-new and now-major trends in the failure of the family as an institution, state paternalism and the erosion of individual authority, the culture of celebrity, conformity, consumerism, self-indulgence, and apathy. Lasch's thesis is that narcissism and consumerism are a reaction to the fear of being nothing in a world of increasing complexity [and we might add, velocity of change]. Fortunately, though they may be the easiest reaction, other options are available. What are Nasch's solutions? A return to self-reliance, the family, cultivated friendships, nature, the community, and the work ethic.
Feed: A Modern Dystopia, MT Anderson, 2004
Kids as consumer robots talking Orwellian newspeak due to 24/7 corporate internet feeds. Chilling dystopian fiction that seems all too likelyfor some increasingly manipulated and disenfranchised segment of our future society, even as we recognize these feeds will be delivered not via some improbable "neurojack" but rather by our ubiquitous wearable and embedded computing devices.
Innovation and its Discontents: How our Broken Patent System Endangers Innovation, and What to Do About It, Adam Jaffee, 2004
Eloquent look at the problems of the current patent system, particularly the changes in U.S. patent law that began in 1984, in favor of large corporations, and what can be done to improve patent quality and accountability to the public, which grants them in the first place.
Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes, Mark Penn, 2007
An insightful look, in the tradition of Megatrends and The Tipping Point, at the many social stratification trends occurring in our modern freedom- and individuality-oriented culture, and the social shifts and business opportunities they represent.
Scanning the Future: 20 Important Thinkers on the World of Tomorrow, Yorick Blumenfeld, 1999
Interviews with eminent scientists, engineers, statesmen and others. Thoughts on how to build a better future for ourselves and the planet.
The Assault on Reason: The Challenge to American Democracy, Al Gore, 2007
How media monopolies and government opportunism have weakened democracy, and a number of ideas for change.
The Meme Machine: Imitation and Social Intelligence, Susan Blackmore, 2000
Agood start at exploring the idea that self-replicating ideas, which jump from brain to brain in our highly imitative human culture, are another level of evolutionary development on top of self-replicating genes, which jump from cell to cell to create life and its biological imperatives. Memes (good ideas that are worthy of imitation) have a "life of their own" in culture. Memeplexes like "the self" are really just one special collection of such ideas. Fascinating way to rethink who you are.
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, 2002
Treats ideas like epidemics. Discusses social roles (connectors, mavens, salesmen) and the dynamics of behavior change.
Virtual Charter Schools and Home Schooling, Carol Klein, 2006
Explores the virtual charter school, which allows the socialization of home schooled peers who are all educated under the same "charter," whatever that may be. Is a virtual class of 30 empathetic high-achievers adequate socialization? If so, will virtual charter micro-schools be increasingly realistic options for educating self-reliant and innovative youth inside a larger culture of narcissism and apathy?

Society (Med): Org: Mgmt, Org. Innov. & Entrep, Org. Sustainability & Social Resp., Org. Dev. Books and Book Sites
Conquering Uncertainty: Understanding Corporate Cycles, Theodore Modis, 1998
Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, Rajendra S. Sisodia, 2007
Read this book for more on the vanguard of corporate social responsibility. People want to work for corporations that follow triple bottom line accounting, maximizing not only financial benefits, but environmental and social benefits as well. Europe is leading the way in environmental benefits accounting,and the US is following. Europe is also leading the way in the transparency of financial accounting, while US financial accounting standards serve more to obfucscate and allow corporations to hide their actual financial status. No one is yet leading the way in social benefits accounting, as the world is not yet quantified enough, our digital and reputation systems aren't yet intelligent enough. But they will be. Meanwhile, companies like those Sisodia describes are showing that socially responsible corporations that declare and strive for higher values, and define their stakeholders in the broadest possible terms, are gaining mindshare and heartshare, and are leading the transformation of of the organization.
Seeing What's Next: Using Innovation to Predict Industry Change, Clay Christensen, 2004
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick M. Lencioni, 2002
The Logic of Failure: Avoiding Error in Complex Situations, Dietrich Dorner, 1997
How our mental habits can set us up for error, and how to guard against it in management.

Society (Small): Personal: Family, Relationships, Careers, and Lifestyle Books and Book Sites
Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, Juliet B. Schor, 2005
Outlines the incredibly sophisticated and relentless marketing manipulation of kids, and the resulting passivity, commercialism, and alienation from authentic values and passions that emerges. Amazing stats like the average 10 year old has memorized about 400 brands (but still knows virtually none of the countries or cultures of the world), that R-rated movies are marketed to 9-year-olds, that the target readership of Seventeen magazine is now preteens. Ideas for ways parents (primarily), educators and govt (very secondarily), and advertisers (least likely) can lessen these problems.
Goals!, Brian Tracy, 2004
Twenty one proven strategies for clarifying your beliefs, values, Major Life Purpose, goals, and plans, and for taking action on them every day. Excellent personal futures book for anyone who needs help improving their goalsetting routines.
Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, Susan Jeffers, 2006
Excellent practical techniques for overcoming fear, indecision, anger, and self-image problems to get to personal action and growth. Very often faulty thinking is at the root of our fear. We need to learn to "do first those most important things that scare us" and watch ourselves as we confront them. Courage can be learned, and this book is a great introduction to how to do that.
Happier: Learn the Secrets of Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, Tal Ben-Shahar, 2007
Workbook for one of the most popular courses (positive psychology) at Harvard U. Dr. Ben-Shahar discusses the blend of reason and emotion, short and long-term orientation, here-and-now vs. big picture, path and destination thinking, that leads to happier, more meaningful, more productive lives.
How We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: 7 Lang. for Transform., Kegan & Lahey, 2002
You have as much control over the way you speak to others as you do over your attitude. Use it!
Insurance for Dummies, Jack Hungelmann, 2001
A good overview of how to manage risk by purchasing insurance, a key futures planning tool. The kind of people who purchase insurance and do investing have strong personal foresight. When we overcome our fears and get good with these topics, we become foresighted as well. The key with insurance is to understand, and learn how to minimize your real level of risk, and to purchase only the amount of insurance you really need. As your personal assets grow, you can self-insure more. Whether car, home, health, life, liability, event, or other insurance, this book is a good place to start.
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Mind, V.S. Ramachandran, 1999
By looking at people with damaged brains, a neuroscientist looks at the way past experience, emotion, and our unconscious and conscious mind construct meaning about the world. Fascinating insights for gaining self-awareness and improving your mental "influence" over your own behaviors.
Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer, Saul Alinsky, 1989
Classic text on how to live with an activist's mindset. Change is always painful to people. Sometimes you need to be an irritant to others to get the social change that is needed. Alinsky gives lots of examples from history of effective "radicals."
Simple Living Guide, Janet Luhrs, 1997
Tips on thriving with less clutter, consumption, and expense in all facets of your life, by the editor of the Simple Living Journal.
Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life, Nathaniel Branden, 1997.
A great book about how to accept responsibility for one's actions and manage one's own self-esteem, improving your self-awareness and ability to create and discover the kind of relationships, job, and life that you want. You don't have to agree with Branden's political beliefs to get value from this book. Branden is a libertarian (someone who's political philosophy is minimal government, and who would not advocate social assistance programs). Libertarians make up only a tiny fraction of political parties in all governments around the world. They are going against the dominant trend of increasing social assistance in the developed world. But while the state may provide increasing safety nets, the self-reliant individual has every right not to take advantage of them, but to make their own future.
The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, John Maxwell, 2007
Key traits like character, courage, focus, generosity, listening, passion, that inspire leadership.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Don Miguel Ruiz, 2001
Be impeccable with your words. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. Always do your best. Ruiz illuminates these four simple habits, and the tremendous personal empowerment that flows from them, if you do the hard work of internalizing them and living by them. This brief book gets New-Agey, preachy, and hyperbolic in its ancillary claims, but discerning readers can look beyond this to glean the essential wisdom within.
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Judith Rich Harris, 1999
Excellent evidence and argument by the self-taught author of a college textbook on child development why parental upbringing has such a small effect on child development. Increasingly we find it is the nature of the peer group that is the primary influencer. Implications of this are not only the obvious, to get one's child into a "better school," but profound: if a child is raised around a special subset of high-standards peers (home-schooled, extracurricular, or otherwise) who have learned how to analyze both the best and the worst today's youth culture, they will take these insights to heart. Even when they rebel as young adults they will judge this rebellion by the standards of their peers, who can have levels of self-reliance and self-actualization unseen in the larger society. The more networked society becomes, the easier it is to find these islands of peer-group excellence and to influence the larger culture by the example of one's own life and the upbringing of one's children, which is perhaps the most powerful and certainly the most personal way of changing the world, in the end.
The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, Andrew Tobias, 2005
Good basic investment advice, including a great deal be-conscious-of-your-expenses and heres-how-to-spend-less common sense.
The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need, Juliet B. Schor, 1999
Portrait of the "getting and spending" culture that pushes so many of us into debt and unsatisfying consumption, and a profile of "downshifters" who find a way out. Nice thesis on the way television watching is causally correlated with overspending, particularly among youth, who are being the most aggressively manipulated these days.
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz, 2005
Data and insights on the massive increase in choice and the corresponding cognitive load on today's consumers, and the lack of adequate external filters and internal inhibitions to keep us from getting stressed and unhappy in the midst of all that plenty.
The Resiliency Advantage: Master Change, Bounce Back from Setbacks, Al Siebert, 2005
Great followup book by the author of The Survivor Personality. Explains how to recognize and admire resiliency traits in others and how to build them in yourself.
The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance, K. Anders Ericsson, 1996
Ericsson's original work on the ease of acquiring expertise via disciplined practice, in spite of one's inherited talent or upbringing. His Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, 2006, is his followup work, and one of our great futures books.
Waking Up in Time: Inner Peace in Times of Accelerating Change, Peter Russell, 2007
Tips for finding peace, doing good, and living well in our modern ever-accelerating world.
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2005
Great advice and habits for being mindful, stress-minimized, and conscious in a world that tries to take away your self-awareness at every turn.
Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Stephen Post, 2007
Research on the mental and physical health benefits of doing good and helping others. Affirms the adage: "Want to be happy? Make others happy."
Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes: Behavioral Econ., Belsky & Gilovich, 2000
Why do otherwise rational people act so foolishly in relation to money? Insights from the emerging science of behavioral economics.

Multidisciplinary Foresight Books and Book Sites



Realistic Future Fiction (RFF) Books and Book Sites
[Realistic future fiction has major parts which feel like they actually could happen in the future, under the right circumstances. Almost all fantasy stories and most science fiction stories really don't count as realistic--there are exceptions however, and if you think that some particular aspect of a fantasy or SF book feels realistic, include it here and explain why. Realistic future fiction is a subgenre of general or science fiction that feels realistic (it could actually happen) most of the way through, to most readers. Well-written and highly realistic realistic future fiction is rare, as you can imagine.]

Realistic Singularity Fiction (RSF).
By far the most obvious monumental sci-tech advance looming ahead of us is the arrival of greater than human intelligence, likely within this 21st century. Judith Berman, in "Science Fiction Without the Future," 2001, noted that writing about the coming AI is so difficult (emotionally and intellectually) that most sci-fi writers, and their readers in collusion, have simply abandoned reading or thinking about realistic science fiction, turning to comfortable fantasy instead (e.g., Star Trek and other such impossible but comforting 'space operas'). Nevertheless, there are a handful of efforts that attempt to realistically describe the likely coming emergence of AI, and the implications of an AI world on human beings, in at least a partially plausibile way. We call such fiction RSF. Here are a few favorites:

The Two Faces of Tomorrow, James Hogan, Yukinobu Hoshino, 2006
Note that this is the (most recommended) graphic novel version. For the book, which has even more interesting detail, but is getting outdated and has a poorer ending, see The Two Faces of Tomorrow, James P. Hogan, 1980. TFT is a fictional account of one of the great questions of 21C tech: How do we trust the coming AI? Hogan's answer is that the world's leading governments decide to put the first near-sentient AI on space station, with a troop of Marines guarding it (and provoking it to see if it will be 'bad') and installing a secret safeguard nuke that can be used to blow the whole thing to hell in case things somehow go south. Someone needs to make a film out of this. I hope it's optioned. I consider it one of the best sci fi stories that has yet to be made into a film. Unfortunately, I think that by the time we have robots advanced enough to build these kinds of space stations, AI will arrive on earth long before we could afford to build them. So the timing of some of these advances are off, but it's a great story nonetheless.

Society of the Mind, Eric L. Harry, 1997
A long (672 pages) but quick-reading 'cyberthriller' about a company whose robots rapidly get smarter and smarter, until the singularity is reached. Lots of fun and predictable human plot, but the rapidly improving tech is reasonably well presented as well. Major points off for the "reclusive billionaire genius" pathway to real AI, a very unlikely scenario in a world where today's AI is incrementally and very globally constructed, in a very 'soft takeoff' fashion. But a very engaging, populist read. Don't want to read? Get the unabridged audiobook for your next long drive.

Jame5: A Tale of Good and Evil, Stefan Pernar, 2008
If you are willing to believe a 'hard takeoff' AI could occur, in this case, sudden emergence of greater than human intelligence via 'full scale molecular simulation' of a human, with 'all or nothing' results, Jame5 is slick, fun, and engaging tale of how that might occur. I think that advanced embodied AI will have to take a highly global and incremental path, involving ubiquitous robots and avatars (digital twins and digital secretaries) who are bred, like dogs and cats, for domestic trustability, even though the robots and avatars brains are in truth evolved black boxes, just like our dogs and cats brains are today. That pathway is at least paid lip service in The Two Faces of Tomorrow and Society of the Mind, so if that's your persuasion you might enjoy those more, and Jame5 would have to take a hit for lack of realism in this respect. But with that caveat, Jame5 is a fun, fast read, with interesting, provocative thoughts on philosophy of mind and complexity.

Other Realistic Future Fiction
(Student-Submitted, Alpha Order by Title).

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932.
This dystopian novel describes a hedonistic world where family, culture,and art are destroyed. Even though people are basically happy and healthy, everyone has lost their identity and individual control over their fate. It's a good thought-provoking book because many of the things in the book (or at least parallels) already exist in today's reality. It's somewhat frightening because it suggests that eventually we might be genetically engineered to live certain lives and to do certain jobs, made to be artificially and superficially happy by what we are assigned to do.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a great book by Philip K. Dick that, I believe, is very possible in the fututre. Most people know this book by the movie that was made of it, directed by Ridley Scott, Blade Runner. I believe that there will be a time, when robots will be possible, and then they will also have to be kept in check. This link is to the Amazon site where the book is.

Dust, Charles R. Pellegrino, 1999
This book pulls information from the past (cataclysmic events - dinosaurs extinction, the Ice Age) to make an inference to what could happen in the future. The author is saying that it's high time another even like those happens based on the pattern of the past. It's geared more towards an environmentalist futurist in that one animal's extinction completely threw off the balance of the entire world and launched it into chaos. Very freaky book that could possibly happen. - Katie Lindner

Ender's Game is an amazing story about a young boy who is chosen to be trained to fight for Earth. An alien race call buggers is threatening the existence of man, and Ender is chosen to go to a battle school in space. This book is fairly realistic and has some cool technologies. The story is amazing, and has the biggest surprise in any book I have ever read. - Brandon Jacobs

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, 1953
This dystopian novel is set in a time when critical thought is suppresed and firemen burn books and the houses that contain them as opposed to actually stopping fires. It tells the story of one fireman who one day decides to get into some of the books that he is supposed to burn, trying to fill an empty void in his meaningless life. Even today, the book effectively analyzes the growing trend of escapism in our society and the effects of the mindless, mass media entertainment that we increasingly get exposed to every day. Out of the several classical dystopias of its time, it is likely the most relevant today, especially because it deals with a future caused by society itself, not the government.

Foundation, Isaac Asimov, first published as a book in 1951.
If I didn't tell you this book was almost 60 years old, you might never guess. Asimov is eerily prescient in many passages. This novel (and the series that it evolved into) is based on the idea that a man has come up with a way to predict the future on a galactic scale; the model doesn't work for small groups, but only billions or trillions of people. If you enjoy science fiction in even the slightest bit, you will enjoy this book. - Bill Nega

Net Force Series,Tom Clancy and Steve R. Pieczenik, 1999
This series involves policing a new type of crime, cyber-crimes. The crimes themselves are not too futuristic, but the way the net is accessed is pretty inovative. It involves sitting in a chair and plugging in (Matrix-esque) but it can be customized however you choose, So looking for a particular piece of information could be done on the net as if you were a pirate with a treasure map. It is a very interesting series and can give a glimpse at the future of the internet and crimes associated with it. - Eric Kaplan

The Animatrix
Another great source on how robots will evolve. One of the short movies in it deals with robots, how they were made, and then when they got out of hand.

The Dragonriders of Pern series -
This series of books, started in 1968, has many realistic ideas to it but it's not until later in the series that it truly comes closer to becoming science fiction than fantasy. **Spoiler warning** After getting past the dragons and the feudal style towns in the series, the reader will come to learn that the people on Pern are descendants from a colony from Earth. The ships in this future do not have FTL (faster than light) travel so any colonies sent out a great distance are generally a one way trip. The one way nature means that ships are designed to be broken down into colony structures. Other realistic ideas in this series include genetic modification, loss of memory of home planet (after generations and generations of struggling to survive on a harsh planet), and loss of technology due to natural causes.**End Spoiler**

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1998
A thoughtful dystopia built on one big assumption: an outbreak of human sterility, and two big and at least plausible consequences: a global fundamentalist backlash, and a nuclear war. Children of Men, 2006 is very similar.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 1979
An excellent science fiction tale that predicts many currently existing technologies, even though they are the invention of other societies in the book, and takes a satirical look at our own psychology. Strangely it even predicts a few social trends long before they crop up in society and truly gives a new meaning to the term trilogy.

The Left Behind Series, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, 1996-2004
I haven't actually read this series, but I know it deals with a post-armageddon world, from a biblical standpoint, and those humans that were left behind in it. It could prove to be a very interesting read, even if you're not religious. - Katie Lindner

The Roads Must Roll, Robert A. Heinlein., First published in 1940 in Astounding Science Fiction (collections of short stories).
This short story is a remarkably perceptive tale about how transportation becomes increasingly important to how society functions, and although we have not yet gotten to the type of transportation used in the story it is a very intersting idea and quite possible to sometime in the future be how we get around. It's a incredibly interesting and exciting story as well as proposing interesting possibilites for the future.

The Stand, Stephen King, 1978
This book carries out a story of a virus that kills most of mankind. An extreme military research problems goes wrong and widespread death follows and this book projects a possible scenario if this were to happen.

The Two Faces of Tomorrow (Graphic Novel), James P. Hogan, 2006
Set in a near future where humans have to face the consequences of living on the same planet with large computers that are beginning to "think" and control their own world (including robots that repair them). Will the first truly self-aware computer be friend or foe? To find out, the U.S. puts the world's most advanced computer on a space station (with a nuclear destruct safeguard) to see if it remains "friendly" and is willing to follow orders even after it "wakes up." A great story that hasn't yet been made into a blockbuster sci-fi movie. I could see a prequel and a sequel to it. Hopefully soon!


Unclassified Books and Book Sites
Put below any books and book sites you recommend but can't easily classify above. Someone will classify them for you if necessary.

The Garden in the Machine --Claus Emmeche
I didn't see a section for non-fiction so I'm posting this here. This book explores the premise of artificial life, or alife. It can be a bit overcomplicated at times but it is a great read if you're interested in alife. - Brant Hestrup

On Intelligence -- Jeff Hawkins
Written by the inventor of the Palm Pilot "On Intelligence" explores artificial intelligence and what it will take for us to better implement it. It is written much better for the average reader than "The Garden in the Machine" and is an interesting read for anyone who is interested in how the brain works and artificial intelligence. - Brant Hestrup

The 2030 Spike: Countdown to Global Catastrophe
This was an interesting book to research about because unlike a lot of future books we are shown, this book is one of those "doom" volumes. It tells a tale of the end of times and 100 things we can do to change and prevent a new "dark age". It might have the impact it wants, or it might flop like so many others. Time will tell if he is right or not. -Alan Cacciamani

I Am A Strange Loop - Douglas Hofstadter