The future of the world : futurology, futurists, and the struggle for the post-Cold War imagination / Jenny Andersson.
| Author/creator |
Andersson, Jenny, 1974- |
| Other author/creator | Oxford University Press. |
| Format | Electronic and Book |
| Edition | First edition. |
| Publication Info | Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2018. |
| Description | xi, 267 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Supplemental Content | Full text available from Oxford Scholarship Online |
| Supplemental Content | Full text available from Oxford Scholarship Online History |
| Subject(s) |
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| Contents | 1. Introduction -- 2. A New History of the Future? From Conceptual History to Intellectual World History -- 3. The Future as Moral Imperative: Foundations of Futurism -- 4. Futures of Liberalism: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and Futurology as a Transnational Space -- 5. The Future as Social Technology: Prediction and the Rise of Futurology -- 6. Predicting the Future of American Society: From RAND to the Commission for the Year 2000 -- 7. Bridging the Iron Curtain: Futurology as Dissidence and Control -- 8. The Future of the World: The World Futures Studies Federation and the Future as Counter Expertise -- 9. The Futurists. Experts in World Futures -- 10. Conclusion. |
| Abstract | The Future of the World is devoted to the intriguing field of study which emerged after World War Two, future research, futures studies or futurology. Jenny Andersson explains how futurist scholars and researchers imagined the Cold War and post-Cold War world and the tools and methods they would use to influence and change that world. Futurists were a motley crew of Cold War warriors, nuclear scientists, journalists, and peace activists. Some argued it should be a closed sphere of science defined by delimited probabilities. They were challenged by alternative notions of the future as a potentially open realm. Futurism also drew on an eclectic range of repertoires, some of which were deduced from positivist social science, mathematics, and nuclear physics, and some of which sprung from alternative forms of knowledge in science fiction, journalism, or religion. These different forms of prediction laid very different claims to how accurately futures could be known, and what kind of control could be exerted over what was yet to come. The Future of the World carefully examines these different engagements with the future, and inscribes them in the intellectual history of the post-war period. Using previously unexploresd archival collections, The Future of the World reconstructs the Cold-War networks of futurologists and futurists. -- From dust jacket. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-250) and index. |
| Access restriction | Available only to authorized users. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| LCCN | 2018933809 |
| ISBN | 9780198814337 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 019881433X (hardcover) |
Available Items
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions | |
| Electronic Resources | View Online Content | ✔ Available |