What Was the Future?

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 shaped? As acclaimed writer and producer Samantha Culp shows in this mind-expanding book, futures-thinking, as it came to be called, has for millennia been at the heart of how humans attempt to exert power over the world to come, and 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 modern scenario design and strategic foresight used by RAND during the Cold War; from HG 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 wartime think tanks in Soviet Russia to Silicon Valley forecasters and big oil engineers, from fashion trend predictors in Paris to technofuturistic city planners across West Africa—Culp opens a window onto the cultural and political forces that influence what futures have been imagined... and why others have been ignored.

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 futurism left our world racked with inequality? And how can we finally forge ahead to a more idyllic future? 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.