CBH Talk: A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present

What’s next? For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests, prophets, astrologers, and seers. Then in the twentieth century futurologists emerged claiming that data and design could make planning a rational certainty. Cultural historian Glenn Adamson writes about futurecasting in his new book, A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present. Highlighting thinkers like Buckminster Fuller, Octavia Butler, Timothy Leary and others, Adamson brings order to the seeming chaos of competing tomorrows and shows how visionaries from all walks of life have shaped our thinking of what lies ahead. Join CBH as they begin the new year by musing on the future. Design critic and writer Alexandra Lange leads Adamson in conversation.