Mapping our common future

Published in The Lancet

Robert Muggah’s book, Terra Incognita, received a positive review in The Lancet.

We used to search the skies for clues to the future, seeing in the wheel of the planets and constellations evidence of our fate. Other traditions made use of entrails (extispicy) or even arrows (belomancy). Such divination practitioners pursued a deeply human desire to discern aspects of the future through visual patterns in the present. We do things differently now, priding ourselves on evidence, science, and data. A promising way to approach the prediction of the future might well be to map it. All maps are necessarily incomplete—models reflecting the values of their cartographers—but their simplifications offer revelations. In Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years, Ian Goldin and Robert Muggah work to elucidate patterns that might predict the future of humanity.

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