What is the Future?

Thinking about the future has become essential. States, corporations, universities, cities, NGOs and individuals believe they cannot miss the future. But what exactly is the future? It remains a mystery perhaps the greatest mystery of all since futures are unpredictable, uncertain and often unknowable, the outcome of many known and unknown unknowns. The future can rarely be simply extrapolated from the present. In this important new book, John Urry seeks to capture many efforts that have been made to anticipate, visualise, elaborate and perform the future. This includes examining methods that have been used to model the future, from those of the RAND corporation to imagined future worlds within philosophy, literature, film, TV, and computer games. He shows that futures are often contested and saturated with different interests, especially in relation to future unborn generations.