Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

by Robert L. Heilbroner

Book Overview

"This is an exceedingly long short book, stretching at least fifty thousand years into the past and who knows how many into the future..." So begins Visions of the Future, the prophetic new book by eminent economist Robert Heilbroner. Heilbroner's basic premise is stunning in its elegant simplicity. He contends that throughout all of human history, despite the huge gulf in social organization, technological development and cultural achievement that...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195090748
• ISBN13: 9780195090741
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Tour-de-force.

In this small book Robert Heilbroner succeeds in summarizing his vision on the history of mankind from the beginning to the ... future."Resignation sums up the Distant Past's vision of the future, hopefulness was that of Yesterday; and apprehension is the dominant mood of Today." (p.69)His analyses are succinct, clear and on target.His vision for tomorrow and after is more speculative:"a spectrum of capitalisms is the most probable political setting for the Western world over the coming of the next century, but that ultimately capitalism will exhaust its vitality, perhaps making way in some societies for a more egalitarian society and in others for more centralized and controlledones." (p.115)I believe that capitalism will continue to be the dominant economic system in the far future, but that the proceeds of the successes of capitalism will be better distributed under the pressure of the democratic process.But I agree with the author that in order to 'save' our planet, we need a stabilization of the population of the globe and a better protection of the environment.A small, but important and stimulating book. Not to be missed.

A different vision of our visions.

Robert Heilbroner has again proven the insight which has made him one of the twentieth century's greatest economic minds. Now, Heilbroner has turned from ecnomy and focused his intellect on human perception of the future. He categorizes human history into four major eras: Distant Past, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. He then goes on to illustrate how each era perceived the future and what it would bring. Using this, Heilbroner then postulates how our perception has changed and what the future may hold