Shaping Tomorrow’s World: A Twentieth Century History of West German, Cold War, and Global Futures Studies

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.