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Shaping Tomorrow's World - Elke Seefried

Shaping Tomorrow's World

A Twentieth-Century History of West German, Cold War, and Global Futures Studies

(Autor)

Buch | Hardcover
598 Seiten
2024
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
978-1-80539-515-7 (ISBN)
CHF 229,95 inkl. MwSt
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Shaping Tomorrow’s World tells the crucial story of how futures studies developed in West Germany, Europe, the US and within global futures networks from the 1940s to the 1980s. It charts the emergence of different approaches and thought styles within the field ranging from Cold War defense intellectuals such as Herman Kahn to critical peace activists like Robert Jungk. Engaging with the challenges of the looming nuclear war, the changing phases of the Cold War, ‘1968’, and the growing importance of both the Global South and environmentalism, this book argues that futures scholars actively contributed to these processes of change. This multiple award-winning study combines national and transnational perspectives to present a unique history of envisioning, forecasting, and shaping the future.

Elke Seefried holds the Chair for Modern and Contemporary History and Cultures of Knowledge (19th-21st Century) at RWTH Aachen University. For the German edition of the present book, entitled "Zukünfte," she has received three major research awards: the biennially awarded Carl Erdmann Prize of the German Association of Historians for the best habilitation thesis, the Max Weber Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, as well as the translation prize of Humanities International - Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany.

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Preface



Introduction



Chapter 1. Roots in Early Twentieth Century





From Prophecy to Prognostics

The Future as a Literary Genre

The Rise of “High Modernist” Political Planning

The Catalytic Role of World War II

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 2. Cold War Science





Big Science and Technological Cultures

RAND, Cybernetics, and Game Theory: Providing the Theories

Simulation Modelling, Scenario Writing, and Delphi: Developing Forecasting Techniques

Transatlantic Platforms and Cold War Spearheads: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Ford Foundation

French Connection: Ford, Planification and the Founding of Futuribles

Emerging Future Studies in State Socialism: Cold War Based Socialist Forecasting and Socialist Futurology

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 3. Conceptualizing Futures Studies: Key Figures and Thought Styles





Normative Style of Thought

Securing Freedom and Authority: Bertrand de Jouvenel Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and the Search for Securing Peace

Concluding Remarks on the Normative Style of Thought

Empirical and Positivistic Style of Thought

Social Forecasting and Social Technology: Daniel Bell and Olaf Helmer

Positivism and Technological Optimism: Herman Kahn and Karl Steinbuch

Critical and Emancipatory Style of Thought

Characteristics of the Critical-Emancipatory Style of Thought

Socialist Humanism: Ossip K. Flechtheim’s Path to Futurology From “Blind” to “Seeing”

Progress: Robert Jungk

Imagining, Planning, Shaping Futures: Flechtheim’s and Jungk’s Changing Conceptions of Futures Studies

Concluding Remarks on the Critical and Emancipatory Thought Style



Chapter 4. Constructing Futurology? The Emerging Futures Field and the Public Sphere





Science and the Public Sphere

Futures Studies and the Changing Science–Media–Public Nexus

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 5. Conflicting Futures: West German Futures Studies Organizations in the 1960s





Peace Studies and Futures Studies: The Founding of the Max-Planck-Institute in Starnberg

Systems Analysis between Planning and Participation: The Studiengruppe für Systemforschung

Systems, Models, Learning: The Center Berlin for Futures Research (ZBZ)

Ideologized Futures in Conflict: The Gesellschaft für Zukunftsfragen (GfZ)

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 6. Bridging East and West: Mankind 2000 and the Founding of the World Future Studies Federation





Peace Movements and Futures Studies

On the Path to Oslo

Technological Optimism and a Spirit of Feasibility: The Oslo Congress in 1967 A Look Out Agency for Europe?

From High-Tech Visions to World Futures: The International Future Research Conference in Kyoto 1970

Cold War Détente Encounters in Bucharest and the Founding of the WFSF

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 7. Controlling the World’s Future: The Early History of the Club of Rome





The OECD Nucleus of the Club

Aurelio Peccei, IIASA and the Founding of the Club of Rome

The Bellagio Conference

An Elitist Circle: The Club of Rome and its First “Project 1970”

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 8. The Environmental Turn in Futures Studies: The Debate about the Limits to Growth, 1972–73





An Environmental Revolution around 1970

The Limits to Growth Study, 1972

The Debate on the Limits to Growth study

Effects of the Debate for the Futures Field and Beyond

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 9. Glocalization and a Subjective Turn: Futures Studies in the 1970s





Human-Centered Futures: The 1973 Rome Conference of the WFSF

Shaping the Future from the Bottom-Up and Globally: Dubrovnik, Berlin and the Concept of Future Workshops

Modeling the World’s Future: The Club of Rome and IIASA in mid 1970s

Global and Local Futures: Rethinking and Practicing Futures Studies in 1970s West Germany

Concluding Remarks



Chapter 10. Global Solidarity versus Economic Competitiveness: The Futures Field since the late 1970s





Closing Doors: West German Futures Studies in the late 1970s and 1980s

The WFSF between World Order and Utopia

An Economic Turn in Futures Studies?



Conclusion



Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum
Verlagsort Oxford
Sprache englisch
Maße 152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Kulturgeschichte
Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10 1-80539-515-7 / 1805395157
ISBN-13 978-1-80539-515-7 / 9781805395157
Zustand Neuware
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