Social forecasting, future studies Books

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Book SynopsisGlobal society is in a state of chaos, causing physical and mental suffering for people all over the world. Yet almost all life stresses are ultimately human-made. Our species is literally making itself sick. Our future is unknown but whatever we bring forth will certainly be the output of the global mind we collectively create.Table of ContentsPart One - The Shifting Sands of the Human System: Our Self-inflicted Sickness, A War of Worldviews, The Process of Life / Part Two - The Modus Operandi of an Ancient Brain: The Power of Opposites, Leaping to Conclusions, Confabulating Coherence, Blending for Balance, Changing Structures / Part Three - Origins and Oscillations of a Global Mind: Source of the Western Psyche, Emergence of the Left Mind, Rise and Fall of Modernism / Part Four - Pitfalls and Possibilities at the Edge of Chaos: Cultivating Coherence, Elevating Consciousness, Counterbalancing Capitalism, Fast-Tracking Our Future

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Book SynopsisFrom cybersecurity to geopolitics - what will the world look like in the year 2020? Paul Cornish and Kingsley Donaldson guide us through a maze of global uncertainty in this fascinating look at the future, offering analysis and creative solutions for those who want to understand how our decisions today will affect the world we live in tomorrow.Trade ReviewA timely and cogent reminder that history never ends and is about to be made * Tim Marshall, author of Prisoners of Geography *This informed and expert book examines credible scenarios of what might happen, could happen and hopefully won't happen. * Lord George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General *2020: World of War should be read by our political leaders, policy makers and horizon scanners alike. * General Sir Richard Shirreff *This expert consideration of potential conflicts will be invaluable to us all - not just the policy makers and politicians who will have to deal with those issues. * Jonathan Powell, former Chief of Staff, 10 Downing Street *Knowing the unknown is the first step in making sure what we fear most doesn't happen. * Jonathan Powell, former Chief of Staff, 10 Downing Street *A well-researched and thought-provoking book * Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis''A timely and cogent reminder that history never ends and is about to be made'' - Tim Marshall, author of Prisoners of GeographyWith the world already struggling to contain conflicts on several continents, with security and defence expenditure under huge pressure, it''s time to think the unthinkable and explore what might happen.As former soldiers now working in defence strategy and conflict resolution, Paul Cornish and Kingsley Donaldson are perfectly qualified to guide us through a credible and utterly convincing 20/20 vision of the year 2020, from cyber security to weapons technology, from geopolitics to undercover operations.This book is of global importance, offering both analysis and creative solutions - essential reading both for decision-makers and everyone who simply wants to understand our future.

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Book SynopsisA speculative glimpse at the numerous possibilities of how the world will end and what happens when it does, written by VICE journalist Mike PearlTrade ReviewBrilliantly anxiety affirming...Thanks to Mike Pearl, I can now claim my constant feeling of dread is based on expert interviews and careful scientific research. * Zach Weinersmith, coauthor of Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything *A deeply entertaining-if occasionally horrifying-imagining of a world where the unlikely has become the reality. * Joshua Piven, author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook *The Day It Finally Happens got my brain buzzing with stories that bring together fantasy and reality. The well-researched speculations induce daydreams and nightmares and mark Mike Pearl as one of his generation's most interesting writers. * Alec Ross, New York Times bestselling author of The Industries of the Future *In his fascinating book The Day It Finally Happens journalist Mike Pearl, who admits almost gleefully that he suffers from generalized anxiety disorder and extended stretches of panic, imagines the future and is shocked by what he foresees. Think Woody Allen meets Alvin Toffler. Just as Toffler's Future Shock set a standard for crystal ball gazing decades ago, Pearl's mighty oak of a book gives us a sobering, and at times humorous, assessment of what's on today's horizon. When you present a litany of dire statistics, as Pearl often does, it's wise to preserve a sense of humor. Pearl has that in abundance. He's a funny guy, but with a serious side. I came away from The Day It Finally Happens bubbling with new information, and hopeful-but not certain-of a better future. * Charles Panati, author of Panati’s Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody *The Day It Finally Happens is unlike anything I've ever read. It's a bit like losing yourself in a thrumming kaleidoscope of our favorite hypothetical futures, which range from looming hellscapes to our most durable dreams-but you'll be surprisingly well-informed when you finally come to in the present. Sharp, comic, blunt, and justifiably anxious, Pearl is the ideal tour guide to what lies ahead. You'll probably find yourself, as I did, flipping to the next scenario, and the next, long past any sane hour of the night. Pearl's investigations into the worlds of tomorrow are never anything less than engrossing. * Brian Merchant, bestselling author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone *Alternately reassuring and hair-raising, The Day It Finally Happens uncovers surprising answers to all those 'What if?' questions that keep us up at night. It's like peering through a crack in time at what lies ahead and feeling yourself unable to take your eyes away. Trust Mike Pearl to be your intrepid guide to the future. * David Feldman, author of Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and Why Do Fish Sleep? *I was floored by the detail in this survey of looming doom. Whether you intend to survive the cataclysm or merely drown passively in a tsunami of fire you should be versed in every one of these scenarios. Remember to keep a small bag packed! * John Roderick, host of the Omnibus Project Podcast, an apocalypse primer *

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Book SynopsisAs his health begins to fail, a historian in the year 2084 sets out to document the irreparable damage climate change has wrought on the planet over the course of his life. He interviews scientists, political leaders and ordinary people all around the world who have suffered its catastrophic effects, from devastating floods and mass droughts to war and famine. In a series of short chapters, we learn that much of New York has been abandoned, 50 million Bangladeshis are refugees and half of the Netherlands is under water. This is all fiction. But it is rooted in scientific fact. Written by a professor of geochemistry, James Lawrence Powell, The 2084 Report accurately chronicles the future we will face if nothing is done to address the climate crisis. A vivid portrait of climate change and its tangible impact on our lives, The 2084 Report is a powerful prophecy and urgent call to action.Trade Review'This is a sobering and scary (and fascinating) book-a look at where we're going if we don't quickly get our act together. And it's replete with clues about how we could indeed make the changes that would make this fiction, not prophecy' -- Bill McKibben, NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out'The 2084 Report is probably the most important literary work on climate change - because by dressing such a necessary message in "disaster movie" clothes, Powell ensures a wider audience than a conventional scientific work.' * The Herald Glasgow *

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Book SynopsisTechnology moves fast - so where will it have taken us by 2050? How will it affect the way we live? And how far are we willing to let it go? In Megatech, distinguished scientists, industry leaders, star academics and acclaimed science-fiction writers join journalists from The Economist to explore answers to these questions and more. Twenty experts in the field, including Nobel prize-winner Frank Wilczek, Silicon Valley venture-capitalist Ann Winblad, philanthropist Melinda Gates and science-fiction author Alastair Reynolds identify the big ideas, fantastic inventions and potentially sinister trends that will shape our future. Join them to explore a brave new world of brain-computer interfaces, vat-grown cruelty-free meat, knitted cars and guided bullets. The writers predict the vast changes that technology will bring to everything from food production to health care, energy output, manufacturing and the military balance. They also consider the impact on jobs, and how we can prepare for the opportunities, as well as the dangers, that await. Thought-provoking, engaging and full of insight from the forefront of tech innovation, Megatech is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand tomorrow's world.Trade ReviewA fascinating book ... the fact that every idea, no matter how awe-inspiring, is grounded in realism, makes this release a resounding success. * How It Works *With Contributions from: Professor Frank Wilczek Dr Rob Carlson Alastair Reynolds Professor Giannico Farrugia Ann Winblad Tom Standage Melinda Gates -- and morePraise for Megachange: 'If you want to know what the future may look like, here it is. A brilliantly well informed guide - all I can say is wow.' -- Chris Patten

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Book SynopsisInternet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. His 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur was critical in helping advance the conversation around the Internet, which has now morphed from a tool providing efficiencies and opportunities for consumers and business to a force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world. In his new book, How to Fix the Future, Keen focuses on what we can do about this seemingly intractable situation. Looking to the past to learn how we might change our future, he describes how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which, like its digital counterpart, demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments and altered the business world beyond recognition. Travelling across the globe, from India to Estonia, Germany to Singapore, he investigates the best (and worst) practices in five key areas - regulation, innovation, social responsibility, consumer choice and education - and concludes by examining whether we are seeing the beginning of the end of the America-centric digital world.Powerful, urgent and deeply engaging, How to Fix the Future vividly depicts what we must do if we are to try to preserve human values in an increasingly digital world and what steps we might take as societies and individuals to make the future something we can again look forward to.Trade ReviewA truly important book and the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature in which technology's smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it. * Fortune *How to Fix the Future, by longtime tech critic Andrew Keen, avoids simplistic condemnations, offering instead a progressive plan to ease the growing discomfort with emerging technologies that only a few years ago were being celebrated. The book provides compelling examples of ongoing experiments addressing new ways of developing and integrating socially responsible technology into our lives, especially in media, government, and education . . . Keen genuinely believes that, yes, we can fix the future. -- Larry Downes * Washington Post *With his new book, Keen switches from sarcasm to a kind of pragmatic optimism . . . Like Churchill, he offers mostly blood, sweat and tears; but at least he has a program of what needs to be done . . . It makes sense, as Keen seeks to do, to take the long view of our current dilemmas. -- John Naughton * Observer *In [Keen's] acerbic, articulate global survey of human-centered solutions, he examines best practice in consumer choice, education, innovation, regulation and social responsibility . . . An invigorating mix of principle and vision. * Nature *After years of giddiness about the wonders of technology, a new realization is dawning: the future is broken... In this bracing book, Keen offers tools for righting our societies and principles to guide us in the future. * Walter Isaacson *In this engaging, provocative book, [Keen] outlines five strategies - regulation, competitive innovation, consumer choice, civic responsibility, and education - that, working in collaboration, can help ensure an open, decentralized digital future... Valuable insights on preserving our humanity in a digital world. * Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) *Keen, has spent his career warning of the dangers of the Internet, takes a more positive turn in this complex yet accessible study. Comparing our current situation to the Industrial Revolution, he stresses the importance of keeping humanity at the center of technology. * Booklist *Eschewing much of the over-the-top luddism that now fills the New York Times, the Guardian, and other mainstream media outlets, Keen proffers practical solutions to a wide range of tech-related woes. * TechCrunch *

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Book SynopsisOne of the German-speaking world's leading young sociologists lays out modern Germany's social and political crisis and its implications for the future of the European hegemon. Upward social mobility represented a core promise of life under the "old" West German welfare state, in which millions of skilled workers upgraded their VWs to Audis, bought their first homes, and sent their children to university. Not so in today's Federal Republic, however, where the gears of the so-called "elevator society" have long since ground to a halt. In the absence of the social mobility of yesterday, widespread social exhaustion and anxiety have emerged across mainstream society. Oliver Nachtwey analyses the reasons for this social rupture in post-war German society and investigates the conflict potential emerging as a result, concluding that although the country has managed to muddle through the Eurocrisis largely unscathed thus far, simmering tensions beneath the surface nevertheless threaten to undermine the German system's stability in the years to come.Nachtwey's book was recipient of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's 2016 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis for Economic Writing.Trade ReviewAn insightful account of the crises threatening German stability. * Morning Star *Nachtwey's book addresses a glaring absence in contemporary political and academic debate, takes up urgent questions and puts forward compelling arguments. In this sense, the book was long overdue, and represents a real advance in understanding the trajectory of social inequality in modern Germany. -- Marcel van der LindenNachtwey makes the convincing argument that the downwardly mobile society is not without alternative, but rather has been vehemently criticized and opposed from the outset by substantial layers of society. For this and other reasons, it ought to be read by anyone who feels like they no longer understand modern society. -- Wolfgang StreeckIt would be difficult to find a comparatively accessible, precisely formulated and cogent explanation of the crisis on the German book market today. -- Jens Bisky * Süddeutsche Zeitung *Critical theory has rarely been more illuminating. -- Eva Thöne * Literatur Spiegel *The book poses the question of class in a surprising and intelligent way. A well-founded explanation of the present. -- Urs Hafner * Neue Zürcher Zeitung *Rarely has such a precisely argued, elegantly formulated and resolutely steadfast piece of academic writing on the complex topic of social structure analysis appeared in the German-speaking world. -- Christian Baron * konkret *The newest Frankfurt School: Nachtwey investigates how capitalism's liberalization over the last forty years has transformed our lives. Oliver Nachtwey may not have an answer, but he asks the right questions. -- Joachim Gaertner * hr fernsehen *In this comprehensive sociological study, the author assembles sobering news from Germany, a country the elites of which routinely pride themselves of presiding over a stable, prosperous, and socially inclusive society. To which there is even some truth, comparatively speaking. Yet capitalism thrives on credible promises and on hopes being redeemed. As elsewhere in the West, German elites are increasingly distrusted and hopes frustrated, giving rise to virulent fears and anxieties. As private and public debt, near-stagnation and growing inequality shape gloomy perceptions, a disjunction occurs between ongoing technical and economic modernization, on the one hand, and the notion of "progress" that used to be associated with it. This is a condition for which Nachtwey coins the term "regressive modernity". Among its characteristics are a decline of collective action and public goods production and the "de-institutionalization" of social and economic conflict. Instead of anything resembling organized class struggle, we see symptoms of diffuse and "anomic" rebelliousness ranging from short-lived "occupy"-style mobilizations to the outbursts of rightist mobs. Nachtwey has written a lucid analysis highlighting the social causes of our current perplexities. -- Claus OffeIt needs at once sociological imagination, an interpretive sense for statistics and explanatory sharpness to be able to decipher the anxious and conflict-laden atmosphere in a country that looks extremely well-ordered, affluent and healthy from the outside. Oliver Nachtwey, impressively combining these three talents, has managed to prompt such a necessary change of perspective with regard to contemporary Germany: In his fascinating study he not only informs us about how downward mobility, precariousness and polarization have grown over the last decades in Germany, but also about how people suffering from these developments fight against the downgrading of their lives - be it by inventing new forms of protest, be it by joining nationalist movements. A must to read for everyone interested in the dark side of the economic wealth of Western countries. -- Axel HonnethA true masterpiece. Focusing on the case of Germany - which has long been mispresented and misperceived as a paragon of economic success and political stability - Oliver Nachtwey offers a detailed account of the crisis of contemporary capitalism. Moving at the forefront of leading theories of political economy, the book develops an empirically grounded synthetic perspective on "regressive modernity", a concept of which much can be expected for future progress in the study of capitalist development. -- Wolfgang StreeckA major critical review of Europe's most important country, its socio-economics, its politics, and its self-diagnoses. -- Göran TherbornOliver Nachtwey has written an empirically grounded book of great topicality. He focuses on Germany, but his analysis is of much wider relevance. Nachtwey reveals that the 'elevator effect', which reduces the significance of social distinctions, is finished. A 'downward escalator effect' now makes class disparities visible again. Growing insecurity, increasing inequality and swelling precarianization lead to a renaissance of both left-wing revolts and right-wing authoritarianism. -- Marcel van der LindenNachtwey's book provides a detailed analysis of postwar developments in Germany from a left-wing, working-class, and sociology-based perspective. I can highly recommend it to everyone interested in the past, present, and future of this crucially important country, many of whose problems face other Europeans and people in the United States as well, in particular the danger of some variant of fascism, most alarmingly in case of a repetition of the 2008 crisis-perhaps a far more serious one. -- Victor Grossman * Monthly Review *

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Book SynopsisWlliam Gladwell meets Alvin Toffler in this lively, provocative and witty look at our possible futures. Filled with provocative forecasts about how the world might change in the next half century, Future Files examines emerging patterns and developments in society, technology, economy, and business, and makes educated speculations as to where they might take us. It is indispensable to business analysts, strategists and organisations who need to stay ahead of the game as well as providing rich and fascinating material for dinner party conversations. Will machines become more intelligent than humans, and even be able to 'read' our minds? Will food in our fridge speak to each other using radio waves, then come up with options for tonight's menu? Is there a looming environmental crisis where Planet Earth is doomed? Would you like a pill that improves your memory? ...Or a moistened tissue that could erase a bad day? Would you feel safer if your front door could tell you whether the person knocking is not a stranger? These are just some of the provocative forecasts about how the world might change in the next half century which Richard Watson explores in "Future Files".Trade ReviewCheaper than a crystal ball and twice as fun...Part Jules Verne, part Malcolm Gladwell, Watson has a puckish sense of humor and his book is a thought-provoking, laughter-inducing delight. * Publishers Weekly *A must read. Well written and concise predictions. * MediaFuturist *Futurologist Richard Watson takes us on a thought-provoking journey into tomorrow's world. -- Ellen Sideri, Founder & CEO, ESP Trendlab, New York * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisMEGACITY brings together new writing from some of the most impenetrable corners of the world today with creativity, resilience and beautifully black humour. COVID-19 has thrived in megacities and poses unique challenges to the world’s densest urban hubs. Beat lockdown by travelling virtually, into the homes and lives of global megacity writers from Karachi, Paris, Manila, Lagos, Tokyo and others.Absurd, extreme, pleasure-filled, crime-ridden. Sky-high meccas of opportunity, vast swathes of squalor.This is the megacity and this, in many ways, is our future. Not long ago these massive urban hubs with over 10 million people were an anomaly - in 1950 only New York and Tokyo could claim the title. Now, eight of the world's population live in thirty-three megacities with many more predicted to arrive and make these places their home in the coming years.MEGACITY brings together twenty-two individual, creative responses to the megacity, infiltrating some of the densest, most difficult corners of the world today. From the tightly packed slums of Delhi and the violent favelas of São Paulo, to eye-watering London property prices and Chinese megacities constructed seemingly overnight - if you boggle at how anyone negotiates today’s rampant, unchecked city growth, this book is for you.Witchcraft, terrorism, chemical swamps, modern slavery, and corpses for rent are all day to day events within these pages. Translated from native languages such as DRC’s Lingala to Portuguese written in deepest Brazilian slang, this collection goes to places which are, for most of us, completely impenetrable.Some of today’s most renowned scientists, economists, architects and urban planners have turned their attention to the megacity in order to understand pressing contemporary dilemmas. It can be difficult, however, when we read their criticism of demographics, economics, infrastructure and environment, to imagine the individual amongst the teeming masses. MEGACITY redresses this problem: giving the reader a many-faceted sense of the megacity character, their stories and their settings.“Megacities are the super-novas of human social evolution, non-encompassable in their totality but fertile with conflicting futures. In this stunning anthology, local writers describe life within these gigantic urban landscapes as paradoxes of paradise and the inferno” - Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Planet of the SlumsContributing authorsDele Adeyemo, Kunlé Adayemi, Jessica Zafra, Richard Ali A Mutu, Uday Prakesh, Diego Gerard, Emily Ruth Ford, Liza Alexandrova-Zorina, Deepti Kapoor, Ayodele Olofintuade, Wu Jun, Anna Pook, Daniel Saldaña París, Hideo Furukawa, Ahmed Naji, Ferréz, Bilal Tanweer, Sheyla Smanioto, Montasser Al-Qaffash, and Jeffrey Pascual Yap

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Book Synopsis"The future" plays a dominant role in everybody's lives. But for many, it is a blur and mystery, a wall of fog in which we struggle to see beyond what is immediately in front of us. By leading futurist Magnus Lindkvist, this book provides the means and tools to plan for and navigate a path into the long term to your advantage. Anyone who wants to have a better, more inspiring life in the future has to plan for it - to future-proof it. In this powerful little book, Lindkvist presents a set of practical and easy-to-apply tools that will help you to create a mindset and path for tomorrow.

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Book SynopsisThe prospects are clear: we will probably live longer. The number of people aged 65 and up will increase enormously over the next few decades. Society will change as a result, but in what manner? Europe and, in fact, probably the world faces the challenge of preventing loneliness and isolation amongst a growing group of senior people. The oldest part of the population is at particular risk of becoming isolated and lonely as they grow older and their work-related networks erode. While working in the field of technology and aging, the authors discovered that there is a whole new field to be explored, namely the phenomenon of connectedness.This book is written by a group of authors with very different backgrounds, varying from business, ICT, marketing, anthropology, medicine, design and computer interaction. They all felt the urge to explore this field of connectedness and they discovered new opportunities for the emerging market of aging-driven design . By unfolding the very nature of relationships and age-based transitions in life, the authors invite the reader to join them in an effort to design for connectedness: to reframe the picture, rethink our options and reinvent how to connect!

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Book SynopsisAugmented Reality is fast becoming one of the most important emerging technologies, with unprecedented investment growth and interest from big tech platforms and accelerator industries. It will most certainly become THE new platform and standard for content creation and experience generation. Its use will make it an essential resource, with a societal impact that can only be compared to the World Wide Web’s global influence. This book provides a ‘wide lens’ perspective of the potential, challenges and impact that the widespread implementation of Augmented Reality will bring. The book introduces Augmented Reality’s core concepts and potential to newbies and experts alike. Looking at the impact of the technology as it matures into a ground-breaking platform, it goes beyond function to explore the context of the technology’s implementation – through social, commercial and behavioural lenses.

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Book SynopsisThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at British Academy Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Tipping points are zones or thresholds of profound changes in natural or social conditions with very considerable and largely unforecastable consequences. Tipping points may be dangerous for societies and economies, especially if the prevailing governing arrangements are not designed either to anticipate them or adapt to their arrival. Tipping points can also be transformational of cultures and behaviours so that societies can learn to adapt and to alter their outlooks and mores in favour of accommodating to more sustainable ways of living.This volume examines scientific, economic and social analyses of tipping points, and the spiritual and creative approaches to identifying and anticipating them. The authors focus on climate change, ice melt, tropical fTable of Contents1. Tipping points and critical thresholds: metaphors and systemic change ; 2. Earth system tipping points ; 3. The culture dimensions: editorial introduction ; 4. Food security, biodiversity and degradation: editorial introduction ; 5. The Spiritual Dimensions: editorial introduction ; 6. Politics, the markets and business: editorial introduction ; 7. Communicating tipping points and resilience: editorial introduction ; 8. A precarious future

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Book SynopsisIn the decades after the Civil War, the world experienced monumental changes in industry, trade, and governance. As Americans faced this uncertain future, public debate sprang up over the accuracy and value of predictions, asking whether it was possible to look into the future with any degree of certainty. In Looking Forward, Jamie L. Pietruska uncovers a culture of prediction in the modern era, where forecasts became commonplace as crop forecasters, weather prophets, business forecasters, utopian novelists, and fortune-tellers produced and sold their visions of the future. Private and government forecasters competed for authority as well as for an audience and a single prediction could make or break a forecaster's reputation. Pietruska argues that this late nineteenth-century quest for future certainty had an especially ironic consequence: it led Americans to accept uncertainty as an inescapable part of both forecasting and twentieth-century economic and cultural life. Drawing together histories of science, technology, capitalism, environment, and culture, Looking Forward explores how forecasts functioned as new forms of knowledge and risk management tools that sometimes mitigated, but at other times exacerbated, the very uncertainties they were designed to conquer. Ultimately Pietruska shows how Americans came to understand the future itself as predictable, yet still uncertain.

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Book SynopsisA 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. It is a combination of fiction and scholarship.

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Book SynopsisAn ambitious, intelligent, and very readable guide to understanding our present and our future. -Harry Beckwith, author of Selling the Invisible No one can foretell the future. Or can they? There are many who purport to-and they are making a fortune.Trade Review"All in all, The Fortune Sellers is a very interesting and valuable book - well-written, well-documented, with an abundance of graphical illustrations and an extensive bibliography for those who wish to pursue the subject further."--Knight-Ridder News ServiceTable of ContentsThe Second Oldest Profession. When Chaos Rains. The Dismal Scientists. The Market Gurus. Checking the "Unchecked Population". Science Fact and Fiction. The Futurists. Corporate Chaos. The Certainty of Living in an Uncertain World. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisOffering a probing look into how modern technologies will affect the future of organizations, this book compares recent technology advances with growth spurts from the past and charts how organizations will be redefined in light of todaya s advances and other changes on the horizon.Table of ContentsAn Archaeology of Wonder. The Age of Invention. Creativity and Decay. Tools that Talked. Willing Cogs in the Machine? Totally Free to Fly and Totally Free to Fall. Escapes from the Here and Now. Cyberia: First Steps. Shared Nightmares, Shared Dreams. Within these Walls. The Rise and Demise of Nations. Out Island Earth. Tools of the Overlord. Monoliths of Stone. Of Networks and Cocoons. The Future Mindset. Epilogue. Further Reading. References and Notes to All Chapters. Index.

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Book SynopsisLays out a picture of impending planetary crisis - a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century - that would dwarf any in our previous experience. This book describes a dangerous confluence of shortages - of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge - combined with the increased demand created by population and economic growth.Trade Review"The sheer number of terrifying facts make the book gripping." -- Mark Bittman New York Times Book Review "All of us interested in a sustainable food system should read this book and become part of the conversation to determine how we can best redesign the global food system to meet the challenges ahead." Audubon Magazine "Makes clear just how intertwined global warming is with food security." Chronicle Of Higher Education "Cribb ... advocates making much better use of our brains and investing much more in improving both small and large-scale agriculture." -- Stephen Booth Law Society Journal "Presents a smart and compelling description of the challenges our children will likely face as the world's growing population and our shrinking resources collide. " National Catholic ReporterTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface 1 What Food Crisis? 2 Food ... or War? 3 The Well Runs Dry 4 Peak Land 5 Nutrients--The New Oil 6 Troubled Waters 7 Losing Our Brains 8 Eating Oil 9 The Climate Hammer 10 Elephants in the Kitchen 11 A Fair Deal for Farmers 12 Food in the Future List of Conversions Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world's first laboratory-created hamburger. Since then,the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread like wildfire through the media. Meanwhile,cultured meat researchers race against population growth and climate change in an effort to make sustainable protein.Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the laba substance sometimes called cultured meatand asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food. Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spentfive years researching the phenomenon. InMeat Planet, hereveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political, and it demands that we examine questions of justice and desirable modes of living in a shared and finite world. Benjamin Wurgaft tells a story that could utterly transform the way we think of animals, the way we relate to farmland, the way we use water, and the way we think about population and our fragile ecosystem's capacity to sustain life. He argues that even if cultured meat does not succeed, it functionsmuch like science fictionas a crucial mirror that we can hold up to our contemporary fleshy dysfunctions. Trade Review “A balm for those weary of the lab meat bluster—people tired of the endless promises, and done waiting for the better days ahead.” * New Food Economy *“Historian Benjamin Wurgaft explores [the] 'small, strange world' [of lab-grown meat] in a thoughtful study mixing science reportage with philosophical meditations." * Nature *Chosen as one of the “Big Indie Books of Fall 2019." * Publishers Weekly *"A thoughtful examination of the technological, ethical, and cultural issues swirling around the development of artificial flesh. It’s a quick-witted, journalistic survey of lab-cultured meat—how it’s made, financed, and branded. Overlaying this complex brew are nuanced ruminations about the future of food and problems with industrialized agriculture, like the spread of zoonotic disease, environmental damage, and antibiotic resistance. . . . Dense but never dry, abstract questions and large ideas are interspersed with lively and fascinating conversations with rabbis about whether artificial meat is kosher and with tissue engineers about the possibilities of replacing organs in humans and leather in fashions. Rarified subcultures of venture capitalism and futurism are also penetrated.” * Foreword *“Wurgaft’s investigation into cellular-grown meat’s various industrial and cultural issues should stand as an essential introduction to the subject.” * Publishers Weekly *"A fascinating, thought provoking book." * New York Journal of Books *“An engrossing read for anyone curious about the future of our planet’s food.” -- Jamie Drummond * Good Food Revolution *“Erudite, eloquent, and funny, Wurgaft makes an excellent guide. He leads the reader through focus groups, art installations, panel discussions, and even the odd laboratory. Wurgaft embarks on fascinating explorations of the powerful hold that notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘natural’ have on the cultured meat movement.” * Public Books *"Jung makes a powerful intervention into the historiography of anti-Asian racism, which is often located within stories of white nativist anger and Asian victimhood of legal and extralegal violence." * Public Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 • Cyberspace/Meatspace 2 • Meat 3 • Promise 4 • Fog 5 • Doubt 6 • Hope 7 • Tree 8 • Future 9 • Prometheus 10 • Memento 11 • Copy 12 • Philosophers 13 • Maastricht 14 • Kosher 15 • Whale 16 • Cannibals 17 • Gathering/Parting 18 • Epimetheus Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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