ASF's
currently recommended "Top 50" generalist titles for broad
strategic thinking about accelerating change in the human environment.
Click on each to see reviews at Amazon.com. Have others to suggest that
are more broadly or strategically important? Let
us know.
Big Picture
A
Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber, 2001
Global
Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st
Century, Howard Bloom, 2000
Guns,
Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond,
1999
Nonzero:
The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright, 2000
The
Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil, 2005
Business
Creative
Destruction, Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, 2001
It's
Not the Big That Eat the Small, It's the Fast that Eat the Slow,
Jason Jennings, 2002
Leading
the Revolution: Making Innovation a Way of Life, Gary Hamel,
2002
Seeing
What's Next, Clayton Christiansen, 2004
The
Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, Robert
Kaplan and David Norton, 1996
The
Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C. K. Prahalad, 2004
The
Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham, 2003
The
World is Flat, Thomas Friedman, 2005
Science/Science Theory
An
Introduction to General Systems Thinking, Gerald Weinberg,
1975/2001
Biocosm,
James Gardner, 2003
Cosmic
Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Eric Chaisson,
2002
Life's
Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, Simon Conway
Morris, 2003
Linked:
The New Science of Networks, Albert Barabasi, 2002
Six
Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan Watts, 2003
Ubiquity:
The Science of History, Or Why the World is Simpler than You Think,
Mark Buchanan, 2001
Society, Politics, and Humanism
Development
as Freedom, Amartya Sen, 2000
Diffusion
of Innovations, Everett Rogers, 2003
Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles MacKay,
1841/1995
From
Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000, Lee Kuan
Yew, 2000
In
Defense of Globalization, Jadgish Bhagwati, 2004
Millennials
Rising, Niel Howe and William Strauss, 2000
Out
of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic
World, Kevin Kelly, 1994
The
Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, 2003
The
Mystery of Capital, Hernando De Soto, 2003
The
Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,
Malcolm Gladwell, 2002
The
Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki, 2004
Technology
Digital
Biology, Peter Bentley, 2002
Flesh
and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Rodney Brooks,
2002
Nanotechnology:
A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea, Mark Ratner,
2002
Natural-Born
Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence,
Andy Clark, 2003
Net
Attitude, John Patrick, 2001
On
Intelligence, Jeff Hawkins, 2004
Our
Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution,
Francis Fukuyama, 2002
Persuasive
Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do,
B.J. Fogg, 2002
The
Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil, 1999
Visions
of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate about Machines, Systems, and
the Human World, Richard Rhodes, 2000
Visualize This: Collaboration, Communication, and Commerce in the 21st
Century, Joe Clabby, 2001
When
Things Start to Think, Niel Gershenfeld, 2000
Trends and Indicators
2000
Index of Economic Freedom, Gerald O'Driscoll, 1999
Global
Trends 2005: A Owner's Manual for the Next Decade, Michael
Mazarr, 2001
It's
Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends in the Last 100 Years,
Stephen Moore and Julian Simon, 2000
Penguin
Atlas of War and Peace, Dan Smith, 2003
Penguin
State of the World Atlas, Dan Smith, 2003
The
First Measured Century: Trends in America, 1900-2000, Theodore
Caplow et. al., 2000
The
Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse,
Gregg Easterbrook, 2003
World
Factbook 2004, Central Intelligence Agency, 2003
The
World in 2020, Hamish MacRae, 1996
World Security/Outlook/Environment
Of
Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan, 2003
Global
Crises, Global Solutions, Bjorn Lomborg (Ed.), 2004
The
Pentagon's New Map, Thomas Barnett, 2004
The
Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, 2001
The
Transparent Society, David Brin, 1998
Youth Reading
Tackling
Tomorrow Today, Art Shostak (Ed.), 2005. (Four volume set).
For high-quality futures forecasting literature, see our
Must-See PDFs, arranged by conference themes.
