The Future

Montfort tells a history of the future. Or, in other words, what “the future” meant to people over time. He does this in this short book by focusing on a few specific topics. One was the utopian writers from the last turn of the century. He covers how the future was portrayed in art, and in various......more

This is my first review on Goodreads and I was led to do it after reading some of the reviews to this book. I have to say that the author states right in the beginning that the book is not an history of futurology, there's plenty of other books on that and Nick Monfort even points you to the right r......more

Another terrific notch in MIT Press’s tremendous ‘Essential Knowledge’ belt, this one concerns how various people past, from Futurist-fascists to Internet Pioneers, sat on their rumps and scripted our presents and futures.......more

ht: this book was a gift from ceasar mcdowell in dec 2018. this short nonfiction book is a particular slice/view of futurism from the perspective of an mit futurist. montfort guides the reader through a series of, in his mind, important moments in futurist history, particularly focusing on the ways p......more

While this book presented some very fascinating examples and analyses of how we imagine and create the future, it gets too bogged down in the specifics about two-thirds of the way through. At times, the stories behind the examples themselves meandered and I wondered what the point was until Montfort......more