Frontiers of the 21st Century : Prelude to the New Millennium

By Howard F. Didsbury Jr.

This collection of papers prepared for the World Future Society's Ninth General Assembly presents long-range visions by outstanding thinkers, such as John Diebold on "The Need for New Paradigms";... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930242556
• ISBN13: 9780930242558
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: World Future Society
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Thought Provoking

Each year futurist from around the globe gather under the auspices of the World Future Society to exchange ideas, explore possibilities, and share forecasts. The motley group includes professional researchers and prognosticators, academics, corporate strategists, and amateur futurists who like to engage their keen interest in trends and their implications.This book is a collection of papers prepared for the 1999 gathering, the Ninth General Assembly, marking the 33d anniversary of the founding of the Society. In 1999, a large portion of our population was, to one extent or another, contemplating what the next century might hold. There are, of course, a wide range of views on an even wider range of aspects to be considered. Much of the future cannot yet be determined, but we can combine today's knowledge with expectations about the directions events and science may take us.Frontiers of the 21st Century presents twenty independent perspectives on what we may see and experience in the years ahead. The chapters, each written by a different respected futurist, are organized into three sections: Likely Developments with Universal Ramifications in the New Millennium, The Creative Utilization of Human Capital, and Futurist Observations on a New Millennium. While the treatise is admittedly not a fully comprehensive view of all the variables of our future, the articles presented are thought-provoking and stimulating.As might be expected in this kind of a work, the articles are also more academic than what we might describe as popular reading. Getting through this book will not be easy; it will take time. But, then again, the creation of the ideas and their expression took time, too. There is a lot of material here for serious futurists, for academics, and for the many thoughtful people who enjoy considering what might happen in our lives and the lives of our descendants. There are few illustrations; the book is primarily text to be absorbed.If I were rating this volume as a book for the general public, I'd give it low marks. The presentation is not exciting and intriguing enough to capture the attention of the general reader. For the audience for which it is intended, the book has quite a bit to offer.