Scanning the Future: 20 Eminent Thinkers on the World of Tomorrow
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Edited and Introduced by Yorick Blumenfeld.
Scanning the Future is one of those books that on first sight looks a little boring and a little daunting. Don't be fooled. The publishers have deliberately tried to hide this gem of a book under a rather austere cover.
The book presents twenty essays from a diverse range of thinkers. Among the more well known are Francis Fukuyama, Nelson Mandela and physicist Murray Gell-Mann.
However, for me this book was invaluable because it introduced me to several outstanding thinkers I had never before come across. These include Max Dublin, Eric Harth, George Brockway and Joel Kurtzman.
Considering one of these writers: Max Dublins essay, Eros and Planning, provides a highly derisive critique of future trend chasers. A little unusual for a book of essays on future thinking. At the same time it presented an introduction to alternative ways of thinking about the future. I read this book during a period of strategising and planning, reading this essay turned much of what I was engaged in on its head.
An example: "The question is not whether or not one should make plans. The question is, on what shall these plans be based? And whose interests will their fulfilment or self-fulfilment serve?"
The editor has to be commended for providing a wide-ranging look at future thinking.
Highly recommended.
- Reviewed by Zaid Hassan
News from Pioneers of Change - SEPTEMBER 2007
10 Year Pioneers of Change Anniversary
