Customer Reviews

Futurewise: The Six Faces of Global Change

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This book is written in bullet points. A lot of times it feels like a rough draft. The author makes many interesting points, and it definitely kept my interest, but it wasn't very cohesive. There were abrupt changes of topic, and the overall division of the material was contrived and I think it detracted from the point.

As for the point, I wish the author had done a better job of citing information. He often presents factual information, but never provides the source for anything he says. This is even more of a problem than usual, because at times it isn't clear whether he's making a prediction or citing a study.

I also thought his findings about religion were biased. He identifies himself as a Christian, and he does not even mention popular atheism (Dawkins', Harris', and Hitchens' books are quite popular). Instead, he concludes that the Judeo-Christian religions will keep growing and take over the world, a prediction that the religions themselves make, and thus one that a Christian must make. He doesn't back up this prediction very well, so it comes across as a preconceived notion. Granted, I read this book in 2009, and it was originally published in 1998; popular militant atheism wasn't as big then. Still, this should have been revised for the new edition. As it is, it is a glaring lapse, and since he dealt with religion last, it left me doubting a lot of his other points.

Overall, a fun read, it goes by very quickly and raises a lot of interesting issues that will need to be dealt with in the future, but his actual predictions aren't particularly compelling.