Go to Seminar on Book Reviews

What Lies Ahead: Countdown to the 21st Century. United Way of America. Strategic Institute, Alexandria, VA. This is revised each two years and used for the United Way of America offices to plan their future choices. It identifies major trends and issues via a large scale environmental scanning committee. Major trends are:

• Social Trends (e.g., population, values, lifestyles, religion, education, crime, health).
• Economic Trends (e.g., global economy, national economy, natural resources, work and labor, personal income, poor and homeless).
• Regional Trends (e.g., population and economic outlook).
• Political Trends (e.g., political climate and issues, government revenues and expenditures, regulation and litigation).
• Technological Trends (e.g., research and innovation, communications and information technology, human impact of technological change).
• Trends in Philanthropy and Special Trend Analysis (e.g., giving, volunteerism, children's health, self-sufficiency.

The Next Three Futures: Paradigms of Things to Come. 1991. W. Warren Wagar. Praeger. 195 p.

The author is a Professor of History and teaches futures courses. He begins with the state of the art, past futures, and paradigm shifts. His alternative futures include: Earth, Wealth and Power, War and Peace, and Living. He concludes by identifying " the next three futures". He assumes the future we are building today is one of "globalized liberal democratic capitalism, and that by the first or second decade of the 21^st century almost everyone will be traveling that road. He believes the techno liberal capitalism future is declining. His third future is located in the latter half of the 21^st century, one beyond liberal capitalism and democratic socialism. In this future the counter-culturalist values have triumphed.

Visions of Desirable Societies. 1983. Eleonara Masini. 272 p.

This book was developed for the World Futures Studies Federation, and is a series of 14 essays about future visions from various perspectives. Examples include a transformational society, humanist/socialist, humanistic, alternative social visions, frugality society, new technologies and old choices, types of civilizations, and a towards a third world utopia. One section deals with the requirements for a desirable society. These are: it must be real and not some idealized utopia, main point of reference is the human species, any implementation will vary in different cultures and societies, main issues are freedom (maximum available) and equality.

2020 Visions: Long View of a Changing World. 1990. Stanford Alumni Association. 252 p.

Included are chapters on how the world has changed, the emerging world order, the changing American, the environment (a question of priorities), education, and 2020 visions. The visions include: 1) Argentina - here we come (using Argentina rather than the European culture as a model), 2) Manifest Destiny Revisited (American territorial expansion followed by export of American political, social, and economic influences), 3) A North American Common Market (free trade, open investment, uniform currency, free movement of people, uniform commercial laws, coordinated foreign policy, and full political integration, and 4) the Handwriting on the Wall (megastate - multicultural).

America Beyond 2001: Opposing Viewpoints. 1996. Markely, Oliver and Bruno Leone, Editors. Greenhaven Press. 312 p.

Includes a range of differing viewpoints covering five major topics: 1) the social fabric of America: what is its future, 2) technological change: how fast and to what end?, 3) what will become of America’s economy?, 4) the ecological environment: sustainable or not?, and 5) America’s political status: what does the future hold? General format is to have two authors take opposite views on a topic and present each section separately. Representative topics include: Is/is not America becoming a third world country, from cold war to cold peace/American renaissance, a vision of revitalized/recycling education, technology can secure/damage America’s future, entitlement programs are/are not sustainable, the future looks dim/bright for alternative fuels.

Inside College: Undergraduate Education for the Future. 1993. Ronald D. Simpson and Susan H. Frost. Insight Books, 275p.

Written by two experienced educators, the book is divided into three parts: 1) international and national parameters that define higher education, 2) students and their learning experiences, and 3) access and opportunity. They include discussions of the teaching-research role of faculty, the need for students to be more in charge of their own learning opportunities, and how the curriculum must change in response to the world itself changing. Some of these changes include the global nature of almost every discipline, the vast amount of information now available to students, a recognition that the "classroom" is only one of the many places to learn, and teachers take on the role of facilitators to learning rather than simply disseminating knowledge in a classroom. Finally, they note that academic communities must redefine their relationships to one another the to the larger world: "faculty members and administrators should rethink the purpose of the academy and the place of higher education in society."

Education for the Twenty-First Century. 1993. Hedley Beare and Richard Slaughter. Routledge Press. 180p.

The authors are in the University of Melbourne’s Institute of Education and Slaughter is one of the world’s leading futurists (and a few techniques are included in the book). They give a general framework of changes that might occur (e.g., increasing population, global climatic change, terrorism, biological knowledge) but also note that new forms of learning could take place (e.g., electronic implants, expert systems, inter-species communication). The key theme of the book is the all important need to shift from the past to the future for considering a number of things, and especially education. Once you look to the "future" needs of education, a number of things can fall into place. If we keep looking at retaining the past structures and approaches, we will miss the changes. If we look to the future, whole new approaches and ideas are possible to address the know needs as well as the uncertainties.

The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next. 1997. Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker. Harper Business. 302 p.

The introduction begins "This is a book about the near-term and long-term future of business and how business leaders must reposition themselves and rethink the arenas in which they compete. It is a book about history and the direction for the future, about the qualities and frames of mind that will sustain us ant hose we must jettison if we hope to cope with what lies ahead. It is a book about taking the blinders off, about seeing things whole and clear. But most of all, this is a book about change, change so rapid and so massive that by century’s end it will have swept away nearly the entire underpinnings of modern life." That is a pretty good review of the book!. They address how known entities will be faced with change (the organization, the economic rationale of today) and how they are being replaces with new rules (values and connectivity, principles as directions, communications and information sharing, and lifestyles). They provide a "rule book" for the new chaotic world (e.g., wisdom of planning, preparing, managing, setting at the top, and focus).