What Was the Future?: The Past and Present of What's to Come

A spectacular global history of how humans have thought about the future, from ancient oracles to AI technolords: how we learned to predict the future, plan for it, and even fight wars to control it—from a cutting-edge writer and producer

How did humanity learn to think about the future—not as fate, but as something to be studied, debated, and shaped? As acclaimed writer and producer Samantha Culp shows in this mind-expanding book, futures-thinking, as it came to be called, evolved over the past few centuries to become central to how humans attempt to exert power over the present, and reveals how every vision of the future is marked not just by what it might be—but who it is for.

In this groundbreaking history of the future itself, Culp blends masterful reporting and vivid storytelling to trace how we got from ancient prophecies at the Oracle at Delphi to nuclear scenarios used by think tanks during the Cold War; from H.G. Wells at the turn of the twentieth century to the AI technolords of today. Weaving a captivatingly robust web of historical figures and projects—from secret computer labs in Soviet Russia to entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, from big oil executives in London to fashion trend forecasters in Paris to modernist nation builders in West Africa—Culp opens a window onto the cultural and political forces that influence what futures have been imagined and built... and why others have been ignored, suppressed, or destroyed.

As we march forward into the next era of breakneck technological development and unprecedented political shifts, What Was the Future? faces head on the urgent questions we should all be asking: How have centuries of dedicated attempts to know and master the future left us with so much uncertainty and inequality? And how can we finally forge ahead to a more flourishing and sustainable future for all? Provocative, accessible, and deeply relevant, this is a book for anyone who has ever wondered not just what the future holds, but how we decide to meet it.