What do you think?
Rate this book
The Nature of Tomorrow: A History of the Environmental Future
An examination of how Western visions of endless future growth have contributed to the global environmental crisis
“This book does something that is worth doing and that no other scholarly book I know of comes close to tracing the history of imagined environmental futures in the Western world.”—William Meyer, Colgate University
For centuries, the West has produced stories about the future in which humans use advanced science and technology to transform the earth. Michael Rawson uses a wide range of works that include Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, the science fiction novels of Jules Verne, and even the speculations of think tanks like the RAND Corporation to reveal the environmental paradox at the heart of these the single-minded expectation of unlimited growth on a finite planet.
Rawson shows how these stories, which have long pervaded Western dreams about the future, have helped to enable an unprecedentedly abundant and technology-driven lifestyle for some while bringing the threat of environmental disaster to all. Adapting to ecological realities, he argues, hinges on the ability to create new visions of tomorrow that decouple growth from the idea of progress.
“This book does something that is worth doing and that no other scholarly book I know of comes close to tracing the history of imagined environmental futures in the Western world.”—William Meyer, Colgate University
For centuries, the West has produced stories about the future in which humans use advanced science and technology to transform the earth. Michael Rawson uses a wide range of works that include Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, the science fiction novels of Jules Verne, and even the speculations of think tanks like the RAND Corporation to reveal the environmental paradox at the heart of these the single-minded expectation of unlimited growth on a finite planet.
Rawson shows how these stories, which have long pervaded Western dreams about the future, have helped to enable an unprecedentedly abundant and technology-driven lifestyle for some while bringing the threat of environmental disaster to all. Adapting to ecological realities, he argues, hinges on the ability to create new visions of tomorrow that decouple growth from the idea of progress.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
248 pages, Hardcover
Published November 23, 2021
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 24, 2022
yas prof rawson go off!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2023
I started to skim it and only got 1/4 of the way through. It just seems basically misled about how progress and growth can work hand in hand with limited resources. It feels like a well written summary of today's banal outlook. "The best case for giving up." I was not finding anything new in the pages and the central thesis being portrayed seem misinformed in light of what I've learned about the world in the last 10 years.
I don't understand how you can write a book about other outlooks on the world without moving outside your own outlook for a second. These previous viewpoints are only explored to use as fodder for criticism about how wrong they were according to current thinking. (I'm sure they would think the same of us, but nevermind that.) My mistake for thinking it was an exploration to see how we might learn from alternative perspectives.
This is a hooded view of reality, in more ways than one. Even it's criticism of progress is incomplete: "the only criticism of progress is environmental"? What about the social havoc it creates? The pros and cons of globalism? There's more than environmental reasons to be wary of progress.
The end chapter is titled "a choice of bad endings" and lists the usual bugaboos: The fukushima diasaster, ozone, extinction, peak oil... It stretches on with the same things I have heard before. Each problem is listed as if it can never be overcome. We must admit defeat and .... do what?
The hooded view of this book is the unwavering dedication to ignoring that we respond to problems and overcome them regularly. Even major ones. Nuclear power is safer than it once was. Peak oil was an illusion that we have now avoided. We fixed the ozone hole. There is much reason to think we will learn, do better, and continue to make better kinds of progress. All of this is ignored in favor of lists of unanswered fears. But it is comprehensive, I'll give it that.
I don't understand how you can write a book about other outlooks on the world without moving outside your own outlook for a second. These previous viewpoints are only explored to use as fodder for criticism about how wrong they were according to current thinking. (I'm sure they would think the same of us, but nevermind that.) My mistake for thinking it was an exploration to see how we might learn from alternative perspectives.
This is a hooded view of reality, in more ways than one. Even it's criticism of progress is incomplete: "the only criticism of progress is environmental"? What about the social havoc it creates? The pros and cons of globalism? There's more than environmental reasons to be wary of progress.
The end chapter is titled "a choice of bad endings" and lists the usual bugaboos: The fukushima diasaster, ozone, extinction, peak oil... It stretches on with the same things I have heard before. Each problem is listed as if it can never be overcome. We must admit defeat and .... do what?
The hooded view of this book is the unwavering dedication to ignoring that we respond to problems and overcome them regularly. Even major ones. Nuclear power is safer than it once was. Peak oil was an illusion that we have now avoided. We fixed the ozone hole. There is much reason to think we will learn, do better, and continue to make better kinds of progress. All of this is ignored in favor of lists of unanswered fears. But it is comprehensive, I'll give it that.
January 27, 2026
Paradoxically, technological progress has left us with a dystopian view of the future. The author shows over the span of centuries how the stories we tell about the future have shifted from largely unbound by any limits to growth, to much more based in reality, and often struggling to see an imagined future when it feels like the actions of the past have already written the future.
While there were voices cautioning against progress for progresses sake since the beginning, the popular view seems to have been an urge to disentangle humanity completely from the natural world. Anything not man-made had to prove its usefulness to humans. There were stories, some more prescient than others, where even food was replaced by synthetics, usually created from fossil fuels. There were ideas to purposely melt the ice caps and create a warmer Europe.
While these ideas changed over time, the breaking points that really started to change the popular narrative were the world wars. Futurists of the time began to see a future of war for ever dwindling resources. The post war period saw a resurgence in largely positive visions of the future, especially with the world's fairs, but the end of the twentieth century dissuaded many of the idea that these visions were really as positive as they seemed.
The author's conclusion is that we must not be dissuaded from imagining a future beyond the current extractive, growth focused worldview. We need to remember the history of our imagined futures and be unafraid to push for a world where we remember that humanity is a part of nature, not apart from it.
While there were voices cautioning against progress for progresses sake since the beginning, the popular view seems to have been an urge to disentangle humanity completely from the natural world. Anything not man-made had to prove its usefulness to humans. There were stories, some more prescient than others, where even food was replaced by synthetics, usually created from fossil fuels. There were ideas to purposely melt the ice caps and create a warmer Europe.
While these ideas changed over time, the breaking points that really started to change the popular narrative were the world wars. Futurists of the time began to see a future of war for ever dwindling resources. The post war period saw a resurgence in largely positive visions of the future, especially with the world's fairs, but the end of the twentieth century dissuaded many of the idea that these visions were really as positive as they seemed.
The author's conclusion is that we must not be dissuaded from imagining a future beyond the current extractive, growth focused worldview. We need to remember the history of our imagined futures and be unafraid to push for a world where we remember that humanity is a part of nature, not apart from it.
February 25, 2023
This was a fascinating study of how western society has envisioned the future - specifically the environmental future - over the years. Rawson goes back all the way to the 13th Century, but spends most of the book in the late 18th Century and forward. Whether utopian, dystopian, or ecotopian, the imaginings of the authors he examines are interesting, sometimes scary, and often hilariously off base.
I write "hilarious," but it's worth remembering, these writers were writing about our future. And like it or not, art has a strong impact on the public psyche. Sadly, much of the writing in the 19th and early 20th Centuries believed in the infallibility of human ingenuity, and the righteousness of unchecked growth. As you know from looking around, it ain't going great.
The book is very scholarly - there are 40 pages of endnotes and an index - but very readable. Also, while some of the names he shares were very familiar to me, such as Jules Verne, William Gibson, Aldous Huxley, Suzanne Collins, Mary Shelley, and others, there were many with whom I was not at all familiar and will try to find time to read. Such as AK Run, Jane Webb, Cousin de Grainville, Louis-Sebastien Mercier, and more.
The greatest takeaway I get - and maybe this is confirmation bias - is that as a species, we're just awful. And our hubris is our fatal flaw. But this book is very much worth reading for a glimpse into the past of how the future - ours and beyond - was seen to be unfolding.
I write "hilarious," but it's worth remembering, these writers were writing about our future. And like it or not, art has a strong impact on the public psyche. Sadly, much of the writing in the 19th and early 20th Centuries believed in the infallibility of human ingenuity, and the righteousness of unchecked growth. As you know from looking around, it ain't going great.
The book is very scholarly - there are 40 pages of endnotes and an index - but very readable. Also, while some of the names he shares were very familiar to me, such as Jules Verne, William Gibson, Aldous Huxley, Suzanne Collins, Mary Shelley, and others, there were many with whom I was not at all familiar and will try to find time to read. Such as AK Run, Jane Webb, Cousin de Grainville, Louis-Sebastien Mercier, and more.
The greatest takeaway I get - and maybe this is confirmation bias - is that as a species, we're just awful. And our hubris is our fatal flaw. But this book is very much worth reading for a glimpse into the past of how the future - ours and beyond - was seen to be unfolding.
September 23, 2022
Vooruitgangsgeloof houdt toekomstonderzoek tegen. (Jean Poirier e.a.)
Daar draait dit interessante werk van Michael Rawson om. "Grenzen aan de groei" zoals de Club van Rome het zei.
Door de eeuwen heen hebben deze twee toekomstvisies tegenover elkaar gestaan: Enerzijds het onvoorwaardelijk optimisme dat uitmondt in een geïdealiseerde wereld van welvaart en technologie, en anderzijds de realistische kijk op de beperkingen die gesteld worden door een eindig systeem zoals onze planeet. En wat de tekens aan de wand ons ook mochten leren, waar de feiten ons met de neus ook op mochten drukken, wat de wetenschappers ons ook mochten duidelijk maken, toch bleven en blijven we bijna blindelings doorgaan met het tot op de bodem uitputten van alle tot onze beschikking staande bronnen. Dàt is de geschiedenis van onze toekomstvisie.
Aan de hand van futuristische werken over de toekomst van de wereld en de mensheid van de voorbije eeuwen toont Michael Rawson hoe de mens zich tegen beter weten in heeft laten misleiden door al te gemakkelijke optimistische toekomstvisies om uiteindelijk aan te belanden waar we nu staan, niet meer op de rand van de afgrond, maar bezig met in die afgrond te tuimelen... het bekende verhaal van het kalf en de put.
En ook al is er geen lievemoederen meer aan, toch is dit werk interessante en instructieve lectuur.
Daar draait dit interessante werk van Michael Rawson om. "Grenzen aan de groei" zoals de Club van Rome het zei.
Door de eeuwen heen hebben deze twee toekomstvisies tegenover elkaar gestaan: Enerzijds het onvoorwaardelijk optimisme dat uitmondt in een geïdealiseerde wereld van welvaart en technologie, en anderzijds de realistische kijk op de beperkingen die gesteld worden door een eindig systeem zoals onze planeet. En wat de tekens aan de wand ons ook mochten leren, waar de feiten ons met de neus ook op mochten drukken, wat de wetenschappers ons ook mochten duidelijk maken, toch bleven en blijven we bijna blindelings doorgaan met het tot op de bodem uitputten van alle tot onze beschikking staande bronnen. Dàt is de geschiedenis van onze toekomstvisie.
Aan de hand van futuristische werken over de toekomst van de wereld en de mensheid van de voorbije eeuwen toont Michael Rawson hoe de mens zich tegen beter weten in heeft laten misleiden door al te gemakkelijke optimistische toekomstvisies om uiteindelijk aan te belanden waar we nu staan, niet meer op de rand van de afgrond, maar bezig met in die afgrond te tuimelen... het bekende verhaal van het kalf en de put.
En ook al is er geen lievemoederen meer aan, toch is dit werk interessante en instructieve lectuur.
September 11, 2025
Pretty interesting book detailing how western societies have thought about the future in the past. Talks about the origins behind a lot of popular settings found today, including steampunk, cyberpunk, and atompunk. Referenced a lot of books I actually saw before in my Global Time Travel class at UCLA. I thought it was interesting how the expectation for the future changes so often with every new round of technology, and how humans are oftentimes poor at predicting change. While today the societal effects of technology seems very clear, past predictions often ended in some dystopia or utopia due to technology. The overarching theme is the Western idea of limitless growth and how it affects politics and culture today. I think reading this book made me think about how dystopian many images of the future are today and how this is a relatively new phenomenon, but gave me optimism that society rarely develops like it is expected to.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews