Five Books on the Future

A recent APF listserv chat pointed out that member Andrew Curry had been profiled on Five Books — a terrific interview worth reading. Of course, that stimulated my own thinking about five books on the future that I would recommend. A couple of caveats before I share. I did a blog post on “ten books for prospective futurists” a while back that contains excellent works, so I won’t purloin any of those for this list. And a few other books I liked were mentioned in the list conversation, so I left those out two [talk about covering yourself – but I always hate to leave off works I admire…it’s the “P” in me (Meyers-Briggs perceiver]

Anyhow, let’s get to it. My top of mind five follow, with a brief annotation, in alphabetical order.

William Gibson, Neuromancer: I had to include at least one sci fi book, and I can’t think of one that produced a greater “wow” when I read it. That first series of three was just mindblowing. A tip of the hat to Bruce Sterling’s Heavy Weather and David Brin’s Earth and Iain Banks’ Culture series and so, so many more.

Oliver Markley, Changing Images of Man: This was a very influential piece to me early in my career, when I had the good fortune to be a student of Dr. Markley when the Houston Foresight program was still at Clear Lake. He truly introduced me to a whole new way of thinking of about the future.

Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Another recommendation from a former Clear Lake prof — Chris Dede (now at Harvard). I remember setting up an appointment with him to discuss how I could better understand technology (yep, oh so green back then), and we chatted for a while and he recommended this book. And it also opened up a whole new way of thinking about technology, probably saving me from being anti-tech – I had some tendencies back then — and seeing it for what it is.

Richard Slaughter, Biggest Wakeup Call in History: I just had to pick a book from Richard. I think I’ve read almost everything he’s written. My visit to Richard and the Australian Foresight Institute in 2002 was another pivotal moment. I’ve tried to be an ambassador of sorts for Integral Thinking ever since. This particular work is an outstanding example and reminds me that big issues are at stake here.

Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology and Spirituality: Being on the transformative thinking theme, I had to include Wilber’s tome. It strongly influenced my developmental view of social change. The depth of thinking here is just incredible, and it is was well worth the time investment.

So, what are yours? Andy Hines