Futurist's Bookshelf — Fifty Titles To Know About

ASF's currently recommended "Top 50" generalist titles for broad strategic thinking about accelerating change in the human environment. Click on each to go to Amazon reviews.

Have others to suggest that are more broadly or strategically important? Send us your recommendations at mail(at)accelerating(dot)org.

Trends and Indicators:
It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends in the Last 100 Years, Stephen Moore and Julian Simon, 2000
The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America, 1900-2000, Theodore Caplow, et. al., 2000
The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, Gregg Easterbrook, 2003
Penguin State of the World Atlas, Dan Smith, 2003
Penguin Atlas of War and Peace, Dan Smith, 2003
World Factbook 2004, Central Intelligence Agency, 2003
2000 Index of Economic Freedom, Gerald O'Driscoll, 1999
Global Trends 2005: A Owner's Manual for the Next Decade, Michael Mazarr, 2001
The World in 2020, Hamish MacRae, 1996

Big Picture:
The Human Phenomenon, Teilhard de Chardin, 1955/99
"The Law of Accelerating Returns," Ray Kurzweil, 2001 (Book Précis)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, 1999
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright, 2000
Global Brain: The Evolution of the Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, Howard Bloom, 2000
A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber, 2001

World Security:
The Pentagon's New Map, Thomas Barnett, 2004
The Transparent Society, David Brin, 1998
Of Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan, 2003

Science/Science Theory:
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, Gerald Weinberg, 1975/2001
Ubiquity: The Science of History, Or Why the World is Simpler than You Think, Mark Buchanan, 2001
Linked: The New Science of Networks, Albert Barabasi, 2002
Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, Duncan Watts, 2003
Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, Simon Conway Morris, 2003
Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Eric Chaisson, 2001
Biocosm, James Gardner, 2003

Technology:
Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, Andy Clark, 2003
Net Attitude, John Patrick, 2001
Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do,
B.J. Fogg, 2002
The Control Revolution: How the Internet is Putting People in Charge, Andrew Shapiro, 2000
Visualize This: Collaboration, Communication, and Commerce in the 21st Century, Joe Clabby, 2001
The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil, 1999
When Things Start to Think, Niel Gershenfeld, 2000
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Rodney Brooks, 2002
Simulations and the Future of Learning, Clark Aldrich, 2003
Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea, Mark Ratner, 2002
Hacking Matter: Levitating Chairs, Quantum Mirages, and the Infinite Weirdness of Programmable Atoms, Wil McCarthy, 2003
Digital Biology, Peter Bentley, 2002
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Francis Fukuyama, 2002
Visions of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate about Machines, Systems, and the Human World, Richard Rhodes, 2000

Business:
Leading the Revolution: Making Innovation a Way of Life, Gary Hamel, 2002
Creative Destruction, Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan, 2001
The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christiansen, 1997/2003
It's Not the Big That Eat the Small, It's the Fast that Eat the Slow, Jason Jennings, 2002
Less is More, Jason Jennings, 2003
The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham, 2003
The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, 1996

Society and Humanism:
Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers, 2003
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, Kevin Kelly, 1994
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell, 2002
From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000, Lee Kuan Yew, 2000
In Defense of Globalization, Jadgish Bhagwati, 2004
The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria, 2003
The Mystery of Capital, Hernando De Soto, 2003
The Wisdom of Crowds: How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, James Surowiecki, 2004
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles MacKay, 1841/1995
Millennials Rising, Niel Howe and William Strauss, 2000

Youth Reading/Sci-Fi Futures:
Tackling Tomorrow Today, Volumes 1-4, Art Shostak (Ed.), 2005. (ASF president John Smart has two illustrated short stories set in a CUI-equipped high school in 2035 in this series: Future Heroes 1, and Future Heroes 2).
Feed, M.T. Anderson, 2003 (A sobering future where increasingly sophisticated digital technologies have massively dumbed down our nation's youth. What steps can we take to avoid this scenario?).