On its publication in 1957, The Poverty of Historicism was hailed by Arthur Koestler as 'probably the only book published this year which will outlive the century.'
A devastating criticism of fixed and predictable laws in history, Popper dedicated the book to all those 'who fell victim to the fascist and communist belief in Inexorable Laws of Historical Destiny.' Short and beautifully written, it has inspired generations of readers, intellectuals and policy makers. One of the most important books on the social sciences since the Second World War, it is a searing insight into the ideas of this great thinker.

托夫勒在20多年前预见的未来是：跨国企业将盛行；电脑发明使SOHO（在家工作）成为可能；人们将摆脱朝九晚五工作的桎梏；核心家庭的瓦解；DIY（自己动手做）运动的兴起……时过境迁，如今我们才发现托夫勒的预言竟大多民已成为了现实。
20年前的《第三次浪潮》在打开国门之初给人们心灵造成的冲击，其影响至今仍然连锦不绝。托夫勒在这本书中针人类社会划分为三个阶段：第一次浪潮为农业阶段，从约1万年前开始；第二阶段为工业阶段，从17世纪末开始；第三阶段为信息化（或者服务业）阶段，从20世纪50年代后期开始。我们现在正亲历着如托夫勒所言的第三次浪潮社会，变化的浪潮冲击又重叠，造成冲突和压力，也带来新生和转机。大变革的强烈冲击让我们感到动荡和不安，而托夫勒的著作则给我们指引出了清晰的路向。
托夫勒也许并没有给我们带来直接财富，但他许给了人们一个梦想，多年以后，当年阅读托夫勒的年轻人已成为中国经济建设的中流磔柱，托夫勒的思想或多或少仍在指引着他们“创造未来”。
在新世纪之初，让我们重温托夫勒的这部经典作品，感受的托夫勒惊人的激情预言！

这不是一部词典。如果词典意味着词语的“聚集”，那么这里的词语还在漫游，还在期待，还在呼唤……它是关于未来的传说，是还未出生的人立下的遗嘱，是尚待发现的疆域的地图。我们可以称它为“预言”，但更恰当的是把它当作“寓言”。 这不是一部词典。如果词典是对词与物冷冰冰的婚姻关系的确认，那么在这里，二者尚未交合，尚在思念，尚存灵感。务实的人从中可读出数字、趋势与机会，但唯有漫游者（书中称他们为Nomade）才可体味其中的恐惧、激情与快感。 这不是一部词典――可但愿它是！如果词典意味着保留、珍藏与维系，那么这里的词语都关乎永恒之物。主题当然是21世纪。但不要指望这本书能为历史指明方向，因为它没有方向，它一直在毁灭的边缘徘徊。世界不知去向，并随时可能回到野蛮时代。野蛮是万恶之源，我们必须拒绝和遏止它，为世界的永恒争取一个机会。

In the spirit of Freakonomics and A Short History of Progress , The Future of Everything is a compelling, elegantly written history of our future. For centuries, scientists have strived to predict the future. But to what extent have they succeeded? Can past events--Hurricane Katrina, the Internet stock bubble, the SARS outbreak--help us understand what will happen next? Will scientists ever really be able to forecast catastrophes, or will we always be at the mercy of Mother Nature, waiting for the next storm, epidemic, or economic crash to thunder through our lives? In The Future of Everything , David Orrell looks back at the history of forecasting, from the time of the oracle at Delphi to the rise of astrology to the advent of the TV weather report, showing us how scientists (and some charlatans) predicted the future. How can today's scientists claim to anticipate future weather events when even thee-day forecasts prove a serious challenge? How can we predict and control epidemics? Can we accurately foresee our financial future? Or will we only find out about tomorrow when tomorrow arrives?

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Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartographer, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. For more than five decades, he set forth his comprehensive perspective on the world’s problems in numerous essays, which offer an illuminating insight into the intellectual universe of this renaissance man. These texts remain surprisingly topical even today, decades after their initial publication.
While Fuller wrote the works in the 1960’s and 1970’s, they could not be more timely: like desperately needed time-capsules of wisdom for the critical moment he foresaw, and in which we find ourselves. Long out of print, they are now being published again, together with commentary by Jaime Snyder, the grandson of Buckminster Fuller. Designed for a new generation of readers, Snyder prepared these editions with supplementary material providing background on the texts, factual updates, and interpretation of his visionary ideas.
Initially published in 1969, and one of Fuller’s most popular works, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth is a brilliant synthesis of his world view. In this very accessible volume, Fuller investigates the great challenges facing humanity, and the principles for avoiding extinction and “exercising our option to make it”. How will humanity survive? How does automation influence individualization? How can we utilize our resources more effectively to realize our potential to end poverty in this generation? He questions the concept of specialization, calls for a design revolution of innovation, and offers advice on how to guide “spaceship earth” toward a sustainable future.
And it Came to Pass – Not to Stay brings together Buckminster Fuller’s lyrical and philosophical best, including seven “essays” in a form he called his “ventilated prose”, and as always addressing the current global crisis and his predictions for the future. These essays, including “How Little I Know”, “What I am Trying to Do“, “Soft Revolution”, and “Ethics”, put the task of ushering in a new era of humanity in the context of “always starting with the universe”. In rare form, Fuller elegantly weaves the personal, the playful, the simple, and the profound.
Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. This is Fuller in his prime, relaying his urgent message for earthians critical moment and presenting pioneering solutions which reflect his commitment to the potential of innovative design to create technology that does “more with less” and thereby improves human lives . . . “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe - the alternative of which is oblivion.” Buckminster Fuller.

The national bestseller by the "ultimate thinking machine" ( Forbes ) whose predictions for the future are startling, provocative--and closer to fruition than you think.
Ray Kurzweil is the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era, an international authority on artificial intelligence, and one of our greatest living visionaries. Now he offers a framework for envisioning the twenty-first century--an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Optimistic and challenging, thought-provoking and engaging, The Age of Spiritual Machines is the ultimate guide on our road into the next century.
" The Age of Spiritual Machines will blow your mind. . . . Kurzweil lays out a scenario that might seem like science fiction if it weren't coming from a proven entrepreneur."-- San Francisco Chronicle
The Age of Spiritual Machines appeared on national bestseller lists, including the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle
Kurzweil's first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines , won the Association of American Publishers Award for the Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990

In 2004, Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, MD, published "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever." Their groundbreaking book marshaled thousands of scientific studies to make the case that new developments in medicine and technology will allow us to radically extend our life expectancies and slow down the aging process. Soon, our notion of what it means to be a 55-year-old will be as outdated as an eight-track tape player. "" "TRANSCEND: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever" presents a practical, enjoyable program so that readers can live long enough (and remain healthy long enough) to take full advantage of the biotech and nanotech advances that have already begun and will be occurring at an accelerating pace during the years ahead. To help readers remember the nine key components of the program, Ray and Terry have arranged them into a mnemonic: Talk with your doctor Relaxation Assessment Nutrition Supplementation Calorie reduction Exercise New technologies Detoxification This easy-to-follow program will help readers transcend the boundaries of our genetic legacy and live long enough to live forever.

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines , he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.

The Industrial Revolution, powered by oil and other fossil fuels, is spiraling into a dangerous endgame. The price of gas and food are climbing, unemployment remains high, the housing market has tanked, consumer and government debt is soaring, and the recovery is slowing. Facing the prospect of a second collapse of the global economy, humanity is desperate for a sustainable economic game plan to take us into the future. Here, Jeremy Rifkin explores how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create a powerful 'Third Industrial Revolution.' He asks us to imagine hundreds of millions of people producing their own green energy in their homes, offices, and factories, and sharing it with each other in an 'energy internet,' just like we now create and share information online. Rifkin describes how the five-pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution will create thousands of businesses, millions of jobs, and usher in a fundamental reordering of human relationships, from hierarchical to lateral power, that will impact the way we conduct commerce, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life. Rifkin's vision is already gaining traction in the international community. The European Union Parliament has issued a formal declaration calling for its implementation, and other nations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, are quickly preparing their own initiatives for transitioning into the new economic paradigm. The Third Industrial Revolution is an insider's account of the next great economic era, including a look into the personalities and players -- heads of state, global CEOs, social entrepreneurs, and NGOs -- who are pioneering its implementation around the world.

The dazzling new masterwork from the prophet of silicon valley. Jaron Lanier is the bestselling author of You Are Not a Gadget, the father of virtual reality, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time. For decades, Lanier has drawn on his expertise and experience as a computer scientist, musician, and digital media pioneer to predict the revolutionary ways in which technology has transformed our culture. Who Owns the Future? is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth. But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future. In this ambitious and deeply humane book, Lanier charts the path toward a new information economy that will stabilize the middle class and allow it to grow. It is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web. Insightful, original, and provocative, Who Owns the Future? is necessary reading for everyone who lives a part of their lives online.

Third wave keeps multidimensional perspectives Its for every human being, to read: students, teachers, Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers,sociologist, Economist,IT managers, sales personnels, and whosever can read and understand this Bible.

This brilliant work heralds the new age of nanotechnology, which will give us thorough and inexpensive control of the structure of matter.  Drexler examines the enormous implications of these developments for medicine, the economy, and the environment, and makes astounding yet well-founded projections for the future.