Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Paperback)

~ R. Buckminster Fuller (Author), Jaime Snyder (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartographer, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. For more than five decades, he set forth his comprehensive perspective on the world’s problems in numerous essays, which offer an illuminating insight into the intellectual universe of this renaissance man. These texts remain surprisingly topical even today, decades after their initial publication.

While Fuller wrote the works in the 1960’s and 1970’s, they could not be more timely: like desperately needed time-capsules of wisdom for the critical moment he foresaw, and in which we find ourselves. Long out of print, they are now being published again, together with commentary by Jaime Snyder, the grandson of Buckminster Fuller. Designed for a new generation of readers, Snyder prepared these editions with supplementary material providing background on the texts, factual updates, and interpretation of his visionary ideas.

Initially published in 1969, and one of Fuller’s most popular works, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth is a brilliant synthesis of his world view. In this very accessible volume, Fuller investigates the great challenges facing humanity, and the principles for avoiding extinction and “exercising our option to make it.” How will humanity survive? How does automation influence individualization? How can we utilize our resources more effectively to realize our potential to end poverty in this generation? He questions the concept of specialization, calls for a design revolution of innovation, and offers advice on how to guide “spaceship earth” toward a sustainable future.

And it Came to Pass – Not to Stay brings together Buckminster Fuller’s lyrical and philosophical best, including seven “essays” in a form he called his “ventilated prose”, and as always addressing the current global crisis and his predictions for the future. These essays, including “How Little I Know”, “What I am Trying to Do“, “Soft Revolution”, and “Ethics”, put the task of ushering in a new era of humanity in the context of “always starting with the universe.” In rare form, Fuller elegantly weaves the personal, the playful, the simple, and the profound.

Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. This is Fuller in his prime, relaying his urgent message for earthians’ critical moment and presenting pioneering solutions which reflect his commitment to the potential of innovative design to create technology that does “more with less” and thereby improves human lives . . . “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe - the alternative of which is oblivion.” Buckminster Fuller.

About the Author

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), architect and philosopher

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers; 1 edition (July 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3037781262
• ISBN-13: 978-3037781265
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,629 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A primer for Bucky's followers, July 31, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Hardcover)

If you have any interest in R. Buckminster Fuller's philosophies, inventions and thoughts, this book is a good starting point. Other of his works can be more difficult to absorb, easily. Fuller's basic concepts of "synergy," "ephemeralization" and "modern day pirates" are all made clear here. If you read this short work and are intrigued by the man and the distinctions he brought to the world, you can proceed from here. Sorry OMSE is getting difficult to find. Now that Bucky's "phantom Captain" has moved on, his words are what we have to instruct us -- these, and the wonderful contributions of Bucky's students to the "world game."

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Control, Operate and Plan Your Spaceship, March 10, 2000

By	rareoopdvds (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Hardcover)

R. Buckminster Fuller's (Bucky hereout), designer of the geodesic dome (one can see at EPCOT), lays down the thought patterns of a successful world in this short and concise book based on his discoveries (probably more appropriate than inventions, as he said "I am not tryingto imitate nature, I'm trying to find the principles she uses"). It is in this book that Bucky gives the reader insight into how he thinks, and how to change ones thinking entirely, to see the Earth as a Spaceship. To feel yourself riding the Earth as a Spaceship. Demonstrating from the anceint "pirates" and how evolution is changed through specialization. How a wealthy nation, such as ours, cannot afford to make economical mishaps or delays on such life-giving elements as water. Moving our modes of consciousness into Einsteinian, omni-directional thinking, we can then turn to everyone to "co-operate." To help others, and not gain at the expense of others. Certainly a classic in its own right, this book will change the way you think, not about life or the world, just that you change your thinking, making every action a universal consequence. There is only one Earth, and we are all living in it. Reccomended!

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for todays 30 something generation., August 23, 1998

By	GTR ([e-mail]) (Michigan, North America, Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Hardcover)

Our forefathers, parents and their peers have delivered us a drastically (wonderfully) complex society with ever increasing difficulties, and opportunities. RBF does an uncommonly fine job of explaining some of the underlying drives that brought us here. Maybe also sheds light on a usefull path to the future.