Wesleyan University

A History of the Future

Author(s): David J. Staley
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 41, No. 4, Theme Issue 41: Unconventional History (Dec.,
2002), pp. 72-89
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan University
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History and Theory,ThemeIssue 41 (December 2002), 72-89 ? Wesleyan University 2002 ISSN: 0018-2656

A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE

DAVIDJ. STALEY

ABSTRACT

Does historyhave to be only about the past? "History"refers to both a subjectmatterand

a thoughtprocess. Thatthoughtprocess involves raising questions,marshallingevidence,
discerningpatternsin the evidence, writing narratives,and critiquingthe narrativeswrit-
ten by others. Whatever subject matter they study, all historians employ the thought
process of historicalthinking.
Whatif historianswere to extend the process of historicalthinkinginto the subjectmat-
ter domain of the future?Historianswould breach one of our profession's most rigid dis-
ciplinarybarriers.Veryfew historiansventurepredictionsaboutthe future,and those who
do are viewed with skepticism by the profession at large. On methodological grounds,
most historiansreject as either impractical,quixotic, hubristic,or dangerousany effort to
examine the past as a way to make predictionsabout the future.
However, where at one time thinkingabout the futuredid mean making a scientifical-
ly-based prediction,futuriststoday arejust as likely to think in terms of scenarios.Where
a predictionis a definitive statementaboutwhat will be, scenariosare heuristicnarratives
that explore alternativeplausibilities of what might be. Scenario writers, like historians,
understandthat surprise,contingency, and deviations from the trendline are the rule, not
the exception; among scenario writers, context matters.The thought process of the sce-
nario method sharesmany features with historicalthinking. With only minimal intellec-
tual adjustment,then, most professionallytrainedhistorianspossess the necessary skills
to write methodologicallyrigorous "historiesof the future."

History, according to Kevin Reilly, is both a noun and a verb.' By this Reilly
means that "history" refers to both a subject matter--a body of knowledge--and
a thought process, a disciplined habit of mind. This bifurcation of history into
subject matter and cognitive process has increasingly informed the thinking of
history education reformers over the last decade. The National Standards for
History recommended, in addition to specific subject matter content, that ele-
mentary and secondary school students learn the process of "historical thinking"
in their classes. The authors of the national standards state that in engaging in his-
torical thinking students should be able to participate in the sorts of activities all
historians perform: "to raise questions and to marshal solid evidence in support
of their answers"; to "create historical narratives and arguments of their own"; to
"thoughtfully read the historical narratives created by others"; and to "examine
the interpretive nature of history" by examining the evidence marshaled by other

1. Kevin Reilly, The Westand the World:A History of Civilization (Princeton:MarkusWiener

Publishers, 1997), xi.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 73

historiansand the interpretiveweight they assign to their selection of sources.2

We must separate the process of historical thinking from the subject of that
process, and in turnremindourselves that one meaning of the word "history"is
"inquiry."
One of the more importanttrends in twentieth-centuryhistoriographywas the
extension of history-as-thought-processto subjects beyond politics, diplomacy,
war, and the decisions of Great Men. Historianstoday are more likely to write
narrativesdealing with women, workers, Brazilian slaves, or the mentalities of
revolutionaries.Historiansimaginatively have extended the thought process of
historical thinking to these wider domains of inquiry,all the while maintaining
the basics of that thoughtprocess. In understandinghistory as a thoughtprocess
first and as a body of data second, historians have expanded the domain of
inquirybeyond the boundariesof elite cultureand those with power.
The purpose of this essay is to explore the idea of extending historical think-
ing into a domain historianstraditionallyhave avoided: the future. I will argue
that, in using the process of historical thinking, historians may inquire into the
futurein the way we traditionallyhave inquiredinto the past. Ratherthan writ-
ing predictions,however, historiansmight employ scenario writing,a methodfor
thinking about the future that relies on many of the same techniques historians
use when writing about the past. In the same way that an earlier generationof
historiansasked if history had to be only aboutpolitics, we might ask "does his-
tory have to be only about the past?"

I. HISTORIANSAND THE FUTURE

Historians have avoided writing serious inquiries about the future because we
have generallybeen skepticalabout our ability to make predictions.Those histo-
rians who have thought about the future-or whose ideas others have used to
think about the future-have tended to be speculative philosophersof history,a
special class of historian.Vico, Hegel, Marx, Toynbee, and Spengler discerned
patternsin the humanpast thatthey thoughtthey could then projectforward.Lest
we think that universal histories are a nineteenth-centuryphenomenon, there
have been more recentefforts to see patternsin the past as a way to think forward
about the future, as evident in the works of Robert Heilbroner, Arthur
Schlesinger,andWilliam Straussand Neil Howe.3In all of these instances,think-

2. National Standardsfor History, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/standards/thinking5-12.html,

accessed August 21, 2002. See also Sam Wineburg,Historical Thinkingand Other UnnaturalActs:
Chartingthe Future of Teachingthe Past (Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 2001).
3. Robert Heilbroner, a historian and economist, similarly wrote about the future, alerting
Americansin the 1960s to "thegranddynamic of history."Indeed, Heilbronerobserved that attention
to "this grandiose design" of historical forces would guide American actions in the future. See The
Future as History (New York: Grove Press, 1959). Arthur Schlesinger identified "the cycles of
Americanhistory,"and offered a guide for thinking about how those cycles might continue to unfold
into the future. See The Cycles of AmericanHistory [1986] (Boston: MarinerBooks, 1999). William
Strauss and Neil Howe, although not professional historians,have identified patternsin the charac-
teristics of Americangenerationalcohorts. They have developed an elaborateschematic that predicts
74 DAVID J. STALEY

ing aboutthe futurerequiressome macro-level understandingof the "forces that

shape humanhistory."Many of these future-orientedhistorians,like Heilbroner,
have a backgroundin social-scientific disciplines. Economists and sociologists
claim to perceive more law-like regularity in human events, regularities that
might be projectedforward.To think about the future, then, it seems one needs
either to subscribeto a social-scientific perspective or to be able to comprehend
the whole of human history.
Most historians, however, are not trained to be universal historians like a
Hegel or a Marx or even a Schlesinger.Most professional historians are trained
to examine a limited problem,within a historicallybrief period of time, making
use of primary source documents. While world history has emerged since the
1980s as a legitimate subfieldof historical scholarship,most world historiansare
not trainedto study the "big picture";for every William McNeill or Immanuel
Wallersteinor FernandBraudelwho writes about temporallyand spatially broad
topics, there are many otherworld historianswho concentrateon a limited prob-
lem, in a limited space and time.4 In any event, most historiansseem to believe
thatspeculativeuniversalhistories are too largeto be amenableto primarysource
researchand too quixotic a task for one historian.'Universalhistoriansrepresent
a special class; their interest in the future similarly belongs to a special-and
highly circumscribed- class of historical inquiry.
Historians and philosophers of history alike have attacked the predictive
claims of universal historiansbecause of their failure to anticipatecontingency
and surprise.HannahArendtwrote that
Events,by definition,areoccurrencesthatinterruptroutineprocessesandroutineproce-
dures;only in a worldin whichnothingof importance everhappenscouldthe futurolo-
gist'sdreamcometrue.Predictionsof thefutureareneveranythingbutprojections of pre-
sentautomatic and that
processes procedures, is, of occurrencesthatarelikelyto come to
passif mendo notact andif nothingunexpectedhappens.6
Moreover, according to Gordon Leff, there would be no history without these
divergencesfrom the routine."History,"he writes, "althoughdirectedat the past,
is essentially about the new. It is read and written as the unfolding of events

the characteristicsof the next generationand prophesizesa trying nationalchallenge for that genera-
tion similarto the one "the greatestgeneration"faced duringthe Second WorldWar.See The Fourth
Turning:What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America's Next Rendezvouswith Destiny (New
York: Broadway Books, 1997); and Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069
(New York:Quill, 1991). Civilizationalists and historians of civilization, in addition to thinking in
terms of long-termscales and trendsin the past, occasionally projectthese patternsforward.A useful
introductionto the methodological issues involved is Mathew Melko, "ThePerils of Macrohistorical
Studies,"WorldHistory Bulletin 17 (Fall 2001), 27-32.
4. See Raymond Grew, Review Essay on Paul Costello, WorldHistorians and Their Goals:
Twentieth-Century Answers to Modernism,History and Theory34 (1995), 371-394.
5. On the scholarly disreputabilityof universal history,see Michael Biddiss, "History as Destiny:
Gobineau,H. S. Chamberlainand Spengler,"Transactionsof the Royal Historical Society 7 (1997),
73-100.
6. HannahArendt,cited in Max Dublin, Futurehype:The Tyrannyof Prophecy(New York:Dutton,
1991), introduction.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 75

which by definition have not occurredbefore. That is the only reason for their
having a history."'7Unlike the social scientist who seeks regularitiesand cover-
ing-law models, we historians have long distinguished ourselves by our insis-
tence that events are unique, contingent,and context-dependent.
The contingent nature of events makes predictions about future events prob-
lematic. Ratherthantheories,historianshave long favoredlocal explanationsand
descriptions because we are well aware that conditions in one place and time
very rarelyreoccur in anotherplace and time. Even with very similarvariables,
the context of a situation affects the procession of events. Conditions that pro-
duced revolution in one place might have led to stasis or conservative reaction
elsewhere. Covering-law models reduce the context that is the stuff of historical
inquiry.8Moreover, as counterfactualhistorians assert, those same conditions
might have led to alternativeoutcomes different from the ones we recognize as
"the actual history."This suggests that the initial conditions of any event in the
past are so inherentlycomplex and unpredictablethat even our retrodictionsare
problematic,let alone any predictionswe might venture. Because events are so
dependenton individual actions, accident, contingency,context, and any one of
countless other variables, venturinga prediction about future events is doomed
from the start.
Moreover,historians don't possess the conceptual resources to make reliable
or warrantedpredictions about future historical events. "Ordinaryhistorical
accounts"depend on data, and the only data historianshave comes from the pre-
sent and past. Furthermore,a key component of the historian's arsenal is what
ArthurDanto called "narrativesentences,"which he defined as those that "give
descriptions of events under which the events could not have been witnessed,
since they make essential reference to events later in time than the events they
are about,and hence cognitively inaccessible to observers."9Narrativesentences
"refer to at least two time-separatedevents, and describe the earlier event" in
terms of the latter.10Danto gives as an example the narrative sentence "The
ThirtyYearsWarbegan in 1618";it is a type of sentence historianswrite all the
time. Now the point is that while they arejustified in writing narrativesentences
about the past, historians cannot similarly be justified in writing narrativesen-

7. Gordon Leff, "The Past and the New," in The Vital Past: Writingson the Uses of History, ed.
StephenVaughn(Athens: University of GeorgiaPress, 1985), 59.
8. Only when certain "initial conditions"persist can one venture a prediction;but as historians
know, the conditions that producedrevolutionin France in 1789 were quite differentfrom the condi-
tions that producedrevolution in Russia in 1917. Therefore, the historiancannot venture a general
"law of revolutions"that might apply to futureevents. As Karl Popperobserved, "long-termpredic-
tions can be derived from conditional scientific predictions only if they apply to systems which can
be described as well-isolated, stationaryand recurrent.These systems are very rare in nature;and
modernsociety [or indeed any human society in the past] is surely not one of them." See "Prediction
and Prophecyin the Social Sciences," in Conjecturesand Refutations(London: Routledgeand Kegan
Paul, 1963), 339. On initial conditions, see his ThePoverty ofHistoricism (London:Routledge, 1957),
120-130.
9. ArthurC. Danto, Narration and Knowledge [1968] (New York: Columbia University Press,
1985), xii.
10. Ibid., 159.
76 DAVID J. STALEY

tences aboutthe futurebecause we cannotplace ourselves at such a temporaldis-

tance from the presentso as to see the context and consequences of events in the
present.Any historianwho writes narrativesentences about the futureis making
a predictionthat the historianis not in a position to justify.
Thus, historianshave avoided serious discussion about the futurebecause we
believe it to be an inaccessible domain beyond the investigative reach of most
professionally trained historians, and because we are sensibly skeptical about
making predictions.However, prediction is only one of several ways to under-
stand the future. Rather than making predictions or rejecting saying anything
about the future altogether,historiansmight try to apply certain aspects of his-
torical thinkingto the study of the future in a way that does not requirepredic-
tions. The result would be a new, unconventionalsort of history: a history of the
future.

II. THE "NEW SCIENCES"AND SCENARIOWRITING

The study of the futurehas been nurturedby a scientific mindset, one that sees
prediction and possible control as the defining characteristicsof science.'1 The
success of physicists and astronomersin predictingthe movements of the heav-
ens and the collision of bodies on earth established this paradigmaticfeature of
science. Social theoristshave, since the Enlightenment,soughtto applythe meth-
ods of science to the human world, with varying degrees of success. This
Enlightenmentobjective acceleratedin the twentiethcentury.Economists, soci-
ologists, and political scientists "hardened"their disciplines, making them
increasinglymathematicaland predictive in orientation.
In the years after the Second World War, high off the atomic triumphs of
American "Big Science," scientifically-minded futurists- engineers, systems
analysts, economists, demographers,and sociologists--contributed to a futurist
boom. Located mainly in foundations,governmentagencies, and think-tanks-
the Rand Corporationwas an early patron--futurists created predictions aimed
at aiding public policy decision-makers.In France,Bertrandde Jouvenel created
the think tank Futuribles, funded by the Ford Foundation,with the conviction
that "the social sciences should orient themselves toward the future."'2As
Nicholas Rescher observes,
Thisdiffusionof futurismwasboundupwiththeever-increasing prominence in all indus-
trializednationsof whatmightbe calledthe "AdviceEstablishment": academics,work-
ing scientists,technicalexperts,andpunditsof all sortsservingon advisoryboards,poli-
cy studygroups,andpubliccommissionsdevelopinginformation, ideas,andspeculations
to provideguidanceaboutthe futureas background forpublicpolicyformation.13

11. According to Heilbroner,industrialization,the scientific revolution, and the rise of financial

capitalism were all conditions that produced an interest in the systematic study of the future. See
Visions of the Future: The Distant Past, Yesterday,Today,Tomorrow(New York:New York Public
Libraryand Oxford University Press, 1995).
12. Bertrandde Jouvenel, The Art of Conjecture(New York:Basic Books, 1967), viii.
13. Nicholas Rescher, Predicting the Future: An Introduction to the Theory of Forecasting
(Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1998), 29.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 77

It was this participationby scientists and social scientists thatdistinguishedpost-

war futurism from earlier utopian science fiction and universalist histories.
Rescherdates this futuristboom from 1945 to 1975; however,we continueto see
vestiges of this boom up to the present. Today, business consultants, strategic
planners,trend-spotters,and managementexperts all sell predictions.14 It seems
that interest in the future has moved from public-policy think-tanksto the cor-
porateworld, especially with regardto predictingthe futureof technology.
Many futuristscontinue to claim predictivecertaintyabout the futureeven in
the face of chaos theory and other "new sciences" that cast doubt on some sci-
entists' ability to predict.The new sciences have been drivenin partby datavisu-
alizationtechniquesenabledby computergraphics.'5Physicists studyingdynam-
ic and seemingly unpredictablesystems like the weatherhave used a mathemat-
ical tool known as phase space to explore these complex domains. Phase space
is a type of coordinate diagram in two or three dimensions wherein one plots
points representingvariableswhich describethe state of a system at a given point
in time. As the system moves throughtime, the collection of points traces out a
shape. In so plotting the state of the system in phase space, physicists can watch
the behaviorof the system and explore patternsin that behavior.
Simple systems trace simple shapes in phase space. For example, a pendulum
without an escapement eventually settles to a point of rest; its phase-space dia-
gramwould appearas a spiral spinningdown to one point. Complex systems, on
the other hand, trace striking shapes that suggest an underlyingorder to seem-
ingly randomsystems. Physicists in the 1980s studyingthese systems noticed that
some phase-spacediagramsof dynamic systems producedcomplex yet coherent
shapes,as if the system were "attracted"to a particularareaof phase space. While
one could not necessarily predict what the system's next iterationwould be, one
could see thatthe next phase point would probablyappearsomewherewithin the
shape. Dubbed "strangeattractors,"these systems offered the prospectsof ascer-
taining orderedpatternswithin seemingly disorderedphenomena.
Other scientists began to study systems that were equally attractedto two or
more attractors.Noting the starting"initialconditions"of the system, physicists
would color-code that phase point depending on where the system was finally
attracted.The shapesproducedwere arabesque-likein their complexity;in effect,
the system was being "pulled"towardseveral attractors,creatingcomplex "frac-
tal basin boundaries."The importantpoint regarding prediction is that if one
alters the initial conditions only very slightly the system might end up moving
towarda quite differentattractor.Thatis, the slightest variationin the initial con-
ditions might lead to no change in the final results, or could produce wildly dif-
ferent final results. Because the system is "pulled" toward any one of these

14. See especially William A. Sherden, The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and
Selling Predictions (New York:John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998). Sherdenis skeptical of most pre-
dictions of the future, and is especially aware of the implications of the new sciences for our ability
to make predictions.
15. A very accessible introductionis James Gleick, Chaos: The Making of a New Science (New
York:Viking, 1987), especially 49-53.
78 DAVID J. STALEY

attractors,the boundariesbetween these "basins of attraction"are exquisitely

complex.
The implicationsfor scientific predictionhave been paradigm-shattering: com-
plex systems might be deterministic, but unpredictable.At best, one could
describe a set of plausible states to which the system might settle, but one could
not exactly predict which state the system would eventually be attractedto.
Moreover,the types of systems thathave fractalbasin boundariesare not excep-
tional, ivory-tower types of frictionless systems; they reflect all sorts of messy,
real-worldsystems like the growthof biological populations,turbidityflows, the
fibrillationsof the heart,and--dare we say--the dynamics of human societies.
We shouldnot take the lessons of the new sciences to be to stop thinkingabout
the future, but only to stop trying to predict it.16 Furthermore,we should not
assume that historiansneed to become mathematiciansor physicists in orderto
apply theirmethodsto the study of the future.Indeed, physicists and mathemati-
cians are coming aroundto ideas that historians have held for some time: that
context and initial conditions matter,that the world is more complex than what
is assumed in variable-controlledlaboratoryexperiments, and that predictions
are at best problematic.Scientists are only now developing a formal mathemati-
cal language to intuit what historianshave long expressed in words.
Faced with this new paradigm of science, historians might take the lead in
exploring differentmethods for thinkingabout the futurebeyond prediction.Of
all the methods devised to think about the future, the "scenariomethod"is the
one that comes closest to the new thinking about complexity and the uncertain-
ties of prediction.Perhapsnot coincidentally,it is also a method that very close-
ly approximateshistorical thinking. Those who employ scenario writing as a
method of thinking about the futureappearto possess an intuition for determin-
istic but unpredictablechaos and the dynamics of strangeattractors,even if they
lack the formal mathematics.17 The goal of scenario writing is not to predictthe
one paththe futurewill follow but to discernthe possible states towardwhich the
futuremight be "attracted."
If a predictionis a definitive statementof what the futurewill be, then scenar-
ios are heuristic statements that explore the plausibilities of what might be.18

16. Some futuristsconsider insight, more than accuracy,a more reasonablegoal for thinkingabout
the future.On various methods of gaining insight while thinkingforward,see Stephen M. Millett and
EdwardJ. Honton, A Manager's Guide to TechnologyForecasting and Strategy Analysis Methods
(Columbus,Ohio: Battelle Press, 1991).
17. Although she continues to look for predictivecertainties,T. Irene Sandersprovides an excel-
lent example of the marriageof the new sciences and scenario-style thinking in Strategic Thinking
and the New Science: Planning in the Midst of Chaos, Complexity,and Change (New York:The Free
Press, 1998).
18. The method was developed by Herman Kahn. See The Year 2000: A Frameworkfor
Speculation on the Next Thirty-ThreeYears(New York:The Macmillan Company, 1967), 262-266.
Initially,scenarioplanningwas a tool used by the military,but in the 1980s strategicplannersat Royal
Dutch Shell applied scenarioplanningto business environments.See the influentialarticlesby Pierre
Wack, "Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead," Harvard Business Review 63 (1985), 72-79, and
"Scenarios:Shooting the Rapids,"HarvardBusiness Review 63 (1985), 139-150. This methodis now
called the Shell method or the intuitive method, and is the one I will be describing in this article.For
fuller histories of the various scenario methods, see the diagramby Stephen M. Millett, "Historyof
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 79

According to Peter Schwartz,a pioneer in the use of scenario planning in busi-

ness, a scenariois "a tool for orderingone's perceptionsabout alternativefuture
environments in which one's decisions might be played out."19 Practitioners
stress that "the purpose of scenario planning is not to predict the future; but
rather,to show how differentforces can manipulatethe future in differentdirec-
tions"20(emphasis mine). Scenario thinkers recognize that there is not one
sequentialpath to the futurebut that the complexities of the interactionbetween
social forces can produce different outcomes. While not dependent upon the
same computationalproceduresas deterministicchaos, scenario thinking shares
a similar intuitive understandingof the complexities of foresight.
Scenariosbegin with questions,oftentimes "whatif' type questions.In choos-
ing such a question, scenario writers limit the scope of their inquiry;that is, the
goal is not to think about the entire future, only the part that is of most interest.
With "whatif' type questions, scenariobuilderswish to explore plausibilitesthat
may appearat the presentmomentto be impossible or highly unlikely.An exam-
ple of a "whatif' question aboutthe futuremight be "Whatif globalizationdis-
sipates?" If this question seems outlandish-"we all know globalization is
inevitable"-imagine a scenario writer in 1973 asking "What if these new
Japaneseimportsbegin to outsell American-madecars?"Who in Detroit would
have not found this question outlandish?The purposeof asking such questions is
to remind the futuristthat surpriseand unexpected divergences from the trend
line are part of the complexities of the future. While some events are certainly
"inevitable," the sorts of events futurists want to think about are far from
inevitable.
Once the question has been asked, the scenario writer then "scans the envi-
ronment"searchingfor "drivingforces." Driving forces are the "key factors that
will determine(or 'drive') the outcome"of the scenariobeing created.21Some of
these forces might work predictably,such as demographicchanges, but most dri-
ving forces are intrinsicallyunpredictable.For example, Schwartzis particularly
interestedin the habits and behaviors of "global teenagers,"young people who
are technologically savvy conspicuous consumers. Schwartz sees this group as
an importantdriving force in many of the scenarios he creates for his clients.
Scanningthe environmentmeans that the scenariowritermust absorbmuch data
and informationfrom the present surroundingsin order to discern the driving
forces. Schwartz counsels that scenario writers must read, watch, and listen

Business Scenarios" at http://www.dr-futuring.com/ifs_scenario_4.htm, accessed August 21, 2002;

Thomas J. Chermack,Susan A. Lynham,and Wendy E. A. Ruona, "A Review of Scenario Planning
Literature,"Futures Research Quarterly 17 (Summer 2001), 7-31; Antonio Martelli, "Scenario
Building and Scenario Planning: State of the Art and Prospects of Evolution," Futures Research
Quarterly 17 (Summer2001), 57-74.
19. Peter Schwartz,TheArt of the Long View:Planningfor the Futurein an UncertainWorld(New
York:Currency/Doubleday,1991), 4.
20. Innovators of Digital Economy Alternatives (IDEA), "What is Scenario Planning?"
accessed August 21, 2002.
http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~idea/scenarios.html,
21. Schwartz,TheArt of the Long View,xiv.
80 DAVID J. STALEY

widely to books, periodicals, films, and music. And not simply in newspapers
and periodicals of record;Schwartzurges all scenario writersto consider avant-
gardepublications,cutting-edgethinkingoutside the mainstream,the location of
much creativityand surprise.
In assessing how these driving forces might interact,the scenario writerthen
constructs several narrativestories exploring the implications of each "plot."
This is a crucial point in the constructionof scenarios:ratherthan one statement
of what will happen, scenario writers compose many different stories of what
might happen. Each version of the future has its own "logics," "the plot which
ties togetherthe elements of the system." Each scenario "describeshow the dri-
ving forces might plausibly behave, based on how those forces have behaved in
the past," notes Schwartz. "The same set of driving forces might, of course,
behave in a variety of different ways, according to different possible plots."22
Indeed, all the differentversions of the scenarioare equally plausible;one plot is
not more likely than the others, nor is the point to constructdifferent scenarios
from which we pick and choose the "correct"elements from each. Each scenario
describes a different,but equally likely, logic of the future.
The "story"of each scenario,as Schwartzsuggests in his definition,describes
an "environment."The narrativeof each scenariodoes not describe a linear pro-
cession of events ("this will happenon this date, then this will happen").Rather,
the scenariois a descriptionof the context within which those events may occur.
Consider the following shortenedexamples, which describe the possible direc-
tions of the future of the digital economy:
Scenario 1: "CorporationsRule"
There will be a convergence of financialinstitutionsand technology. This will
be accomplishedby financialinstitutionsdeveloping their own software. Types
of technologies will include smartcards, where all banking informationis con-
tained in a microchipon the card, and consumerdatabases.Since financialinsti-
tutionswill be the drivingforce behind developing digital cash and their systems,
the control of cash will be in the corporatesector. This may even result in dif-
ferent networksdeveloping differentforms of e-cash.
Scenario 2: "Crypto-Anarchy"
Digital cash is the predominantmeans of exchange. Due to the anonymousand
untraceablenatureof digital cash it has become impossible to track the income
of individuals.Income tax has been abolished in favor of taxes at point of sale
and on physical assets. Large corporationshave disintegratedand the commer-
cial sector is dominatedby highly competitive, specialized companies that cater
to the needs of the individual, supplying primarily innovative technology and
software.
Scenario 3: "Third-SectorEcotopia"
Businesses are more accountable for their social and environmentalrole in
society: manufacturing,construction,distributionof consumergoods with a min-
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 81

imum of environmental impact. Basic level of computer network (Internet)

access is maintained through corporate and tax subsidy as a public resource.
Public informationkiosks abound, and there is an emphasis on technology in
education.23
Note that each scenariohas a brief title, a convention among scenario writers,
a tag that allows the readerto grasp the "logics" of each narrative.Absent from
each story are individuals and specific dates, the sorts of informationone might
find in a prediction. Scenarios read more like anthropological"thick descrip-
tions" of a plausible system in the future.
Scenario writers are not scientists nor do they use scientific language.
However, I believe that the thinkingbehind the scenario method is analogousto
the thinking behind deterministic but unpredictablechaos. In the same way
physicists examine the initial conditions of a system, scenario writers scan for
drivingforces. As physicists plot the complexities of the interactionsin these ini-
tial conditions,scenariowritersseek analogies in the past to imagine how the dri-
ving forces might interactin the future.The different scenariosmight be under-
stood as analogous to "attractors"towardwhich the futuremight proceed. If pre-
diction is the goal to which scientifically-mindedfuturistshave aspired,scenario
writing may well be the new goal that binds the new sciences and futurism.
Futuristsare not of one mind as to the efficacy of scenarios.Rescher dismiss-
es scenariosas so many interestingstories. "Scenarios,"he writes,
areimaginativespeculations aboutwhatmighthappenandnotinformative specifications
attempting to preindicatewhatwillhappen.By theirverynature,then,predictionandsce-
narioconstruction aredifferentsortsof enterprises.
Theirpursuitinvolvesdifferentaims
andtheireffectivecultivationcallsforverydifferentsortsof intellectual
resources;name-
ly, realisticforesightin theone case andlivelyimagination
in theother.24

However, scenarios are built from more rigorous stuff thanjust imagination,and
in fact are composed via a process similarto the historicalmethod,as I will detail
below. Furthermore,the type of flexible thinkingenabledby the scenariomethod
seems a more realistic approachto the complexities of the futurethan the hubris-
tic confidence suggested by a prediction.

III. SCENARIOSAND HISTORY

Schwartz maintains that some people immediately take to scenario thinking,

while for others it is a difficult stretch. "The anthropologistis more attunedto
uncertaintyand multiple points of view, and can more easily accept the practice
of scenarios,"he writes. "The same is true for historians."25 As the above sum-

23. IDEA, http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~idea/scenl.html;http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~idea/scen2.html;

(all accessed August 21, 2002). Scenarios are usually much
http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~idea/scen3.html
longer than these brief paragraphs,usually two to three pages in length, although historiansmight
wish to compose longer scenarios.
24. Rescher,Predicting the Future,40.
25. Schwartz,TheArt of the Long View,31.
82 DAVID J. STALEY

mary indicates, the scenario method relies on many of the same techniques for
writing about the future that historians use when writing about the past.
Historiansmight then begin to explorethese methodologicalsimilaritiesas a way
to appropriatethe domain of the futureas a legitimate subject matterfor histori-
cal inquiry.
One historianwho has been inspired by scenario thinking to write about the
future is W. WarrenWagar.Wagardid not arrive at scenario thinking from the
directionof the new sciences and deterministicbut unpredictablechaos, howev-
er, but ratherfrom postmodernism.Postmodemistliterarytheory confirmedwhat
he had long believed about history writing: that history is a story, and the histo-
rian a type of storyteller.In debunkingthe myth of scientific objectivity in histo-
ry, postmodemists such as Hayden White called attentionto the fact that histor-
ical texts are verbalmodels thatreferto the past, but are not homologous with it.
Historians interpret(the meaning of) the past, they do not reproduce it. "In
short,"Wagarconcludes, "historiansinfected by postmodernisttheory acknowl-
edge that what they do is create texts about texts, which can be read in infinitely
differentways but can in no sense recover or reconstitutethe real past. The real
past happened,but it is now gone-every nanosecondof it. Hence, the past is just
as inaccessible as the future."26
Indeed, Wagarsees the past and future as essentially the same thing. Past and
futureare partof the same space-time continuum.Both are singular,in thatthere
is only one past and there will be only one future.Both past and future stand in
the same relative position to the observer in the present.According to Wagar's
logic, then, there is nothing preventinghistoriansfrom similarly writing stories
about the equally inaccessible future. "Scholars who are in the habit of telling
stories about the past are especially well positioned to tell stories about the
future," he contends. "They cannot predict the future anymore than they can
recover the past. Their stories of the past tell us bits and pieces of what might
have happened,as we today are empoweredand conditionedto construeit. Their
stories of the futuretell us bits and pieces of what might still happen. But they
do not tell us what did happen and what will happen."27Wagarbelieves histori-
ans are empoweredto write stories about the futureusing scenario thinkingas a
license to avoid making definitivepredictions--in the same way postmodernism
has freed them from searchingfor the inaccessible objective truthof the past.
Though Wagarmakes some good points about history and its relation to the
past and the future,he somewhatoverstateshis case. It is true that both scenario-
building and history are forms of storytelling. But while historians are indeed
storytellers,we write particulartypes of disciplined stories. Unlike fiction writ-
ers who enjoy many more degrees of narrativefreedom, historiansmust adhere
to specific methods that limit the types of stories we are permitted to write.
Similarly,scenariosare stories generatedby a particularmethod.As the scenario
writersDaniel Yerginand Thane Gustafson have argued,scenarios involve both

26. W. WarrenWagar,"Pastand Future,"AmericanBehavioralScientist42 (Nov./Dec. 1998), 366.

27. Ibid., 367.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 83

imaginationand discipline, an apt descriptionof the historical method as well.28

Viewing scenarios and histories as mere stories makes them seem less rigorous
than a prediction, implying they should be taken less seriously, and allowing
someone like Rescher to dismiss scenarios as so many imaginativetales. I would
arguethat it is the combinationof imaginationand discipline that makes histori-
ans especially well qualified to write about the future.
That discipline comes from historical thinking, the method I summarizedin
the introduction.29 The historian'sinquirybegins with questions. These questions
can be broad or narrow,can concern multiple variables or few, and can inquire
about the relatively present-nearor present-far.Historians might choose, like
Wagar,to inquire into a temporally,spatially, and thematically broad question.
His Short History of the Future is based on the question "Whatis the future of
the world system?" Wagar insists that historians of the future must think like
world historianslike William McNeill or Leften Stavrianos.That is, historians
must consider the future holistically and in the broadest topical, temporal,and
spatialterms.30Hence, Wagar'shistory covers the entireglobe, deals with social,
political, economic, and intellectualdevelopments,andextends centuriesinto the
future.But, pace Wagar,historianscan also think about more narrowlydefined
topics, as Yergin and Gustafson demonstratein Russia 2010. That collection of
four scenarios for post-Soviet Russia deals with the political and economic sys-
tem over the next decade. Their history of the futureis closer to the dimensions
to which most professionalhistoriansare accustomed:our monographsandjour-
nal articlestypically deal with a shorttime period, covering a specific geograph-
ical areaand a specific topic.31Therefore,while as universalhistorianswe might
inquire into the future, it is perfectly acceptable for historians to ask narrowly-
circumscribedquestions.
Once the questionis asked, the historianmust locate evidence. While thereare
no "archivesof the future"to which a historianmight travel, evidence aboutthe
futureis readilyat hand.Like a scenariowriter,the historianmust "scanthe envi-

28. See Daniel Yerginand Thane Gustafson,Russia 2010, and Whatit Means for the Rest of the
World(New York:Vintage Books, 1995), xviii.
29. Before the historicalinquirybegins, one might wish to examine the historian.A historianis far
from a neutraland objective observer of the past. Historiansbring their own personal experiences,
biases, theoreticalorientations,schools of thought,and particularintereststo their inquiry.Any mean-
ingful history of the futurewould similarlyrequireone to take stock of the historianwriting the sce-
nario.Wagar,for example, brings a backgroundas a historianof utopianscience fiction;his personal
favorite is H. G. Wells, after whom he unashamedlymodels his own Short History of the Future
(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1999). This might explain Wagar'sinsistence on the relation-
ship between history and story. On Wagar's debt to Wells, see "Tomorrowand Tomorrow and
Tomorrow,"Technology Review 96 (April 1993), 50-59. Wagar has been heavily influenced by
Marxismas well as the world systems theoryof ImmanuelWallerstein,both of which play prominent
roles in his history of the future.
30. Wagar,"Pastand Future,"367. Wagarsays the historianof the future must consider "the ver-
tical and the horizontaldimensions of totality."
31. See, for example, my "Japan'sUncertainFuture:Key Trendsand Scenarios,"The Futurist36
(March/April2002), 48-53. I have also writtenscenarios dealing with topics rangingfrom the future
of informationtechnologies to the futureof computersin the discipline of history.The types of busi-
ness scenariosPeter Schwartzwrites similarlycover specific times, places, and issues.
84 DAVID J. STALEY

ronment,"that is read, listen, and watch widely. The types of sources one must
examine, of course, depend on the type of inquiry one wants to perform.When
writing a history of the future of Japan,for example, I consulted government
announcements, journalistic accounts, sociological observations, and demo-
graphic projections,as well as evidence from the past. Evidence does not exist
independentlyof the historian;in scanning the environmentfor information,in
identifyingdatalikely to serve the inquiry,the historianidentifiesmaterialas evi-
dence. I do not mean to suggest, of course, that historiansinvent their sources,
but only that documents, statistics, proclamations,mass media images, and the
like are not evidence until a historianidentifiesthem as such. This applies to evi-
dence from the past as well, not just to evidence of the future.Historiansdid not
consider old parishrecordsor women'sjournals"evidence"until a group of his-
torians identifiedthem as such. These historiansdid not create the materialarti-
fact, only the concept of the artifactas evidence. "Virtuallyanythingin the world
may be evidence for something else," writes Michael Stanford,"if a rational
mind so judges it."32Like evidence from the past, evidence for the future is not
intrinsicallyevident. It is made evidence by the historian'smind acting upon it.
Therewill be those historianswho will contendthatthe dataI consultedarenot
really evidence of the future but ratherevidence of the present. All evidence,
however, even evidence about the past, resides in the here and now. It goes with-
out saying thathistoriansdo not studythe actualpast but rathermaterialandmen-
tal objectsfrom the past. "Wedo not,"observesArthurDanto, "havedirectaccess
to history-as-actuality,but only indirectaccess throughusing 'history as record,'
that is to say ... bits and pieces of the presentworld which standin certainrela-
tions with history-as-actuality."33 The evidence from the past that exists today
exists in tangibleform in the present.In fact, it might be more correctto say that
historiansdo not study the past but ratherpresent evidence. The historianworks
backwardsfrom this presentevidence to constructan accountof a past reality.A
historianinquiringinto the futurehas the opposite but relatedtask of takingevi-
dence in the present and thinking forwardin order to constructan account of a
reality of the future. Futurehistorianstake bits and pieces of the present world
which standin certainrelationswith "history-as-potential." Thereis, for example,
evidence that some Japanese fathers are becoming "stay-at-homedads"; in my
history of Japan'sfuture,I offered this as evidence of a futureperiod of greater
gender equality.Survivingevidence from the past provides only a trace of what
was; evidence in the presentprovidespossible precursorsof what might be.
The next task for the historianis to discernthe patternsand meaningin the evi-
dence.34Thinkingaboutthe futureinvolves the same process of finding patterns

32. Michael Stanford,The Nature of Historical Knowledge (Oxford, UK and Cambridge,Mass.:

Blackwell, 1986), 64.
33. Danto, Narrationand Knowledge, 88.
34. As Stanfordobserves, this is the centralactivity of the historian:historyis "the fusion of mind
and evidence." Stanford,The Nature of Historical Knowledge, 76. RichardJ. Evans notes that histo-
rians examine documents"as evidence for establishingthe largerpatternsthatconnect them." See In
Defense of History (New York:W. W. Norton and Co., 1999), 69-70.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 85

in the evidence as does thinking about the past. To arrive at the conclusion that
Japan might be moving toward greater gender equality, I had to place the evi-
dence for stay-at-homedads alongside other evidence, such as the younger gen-
eration's more liberal attitudes, the rise in the percentage of "love marriages"
(rather than arranged marriages), and demographic projections that suggest
declining birthrates.That is, I sought patternsin the noise of the evidence.35
As is the case with evidence about the past, evidence about the future is also
scanty and incomplete and certainly not in 1:1 correspondencewith what will
actually happen. Any construction of an account of the future involves using
pieces of evidence in a creative way, yet this account must be as faithful to the
plausibilities of the future as the evidence suggests. If this seems an impossible
task-for how can one faithfully describe what has yet to happen-it might be
useful to consider the work of counterfactualhistorians.Rigorous counterfactu-
al history comparesthe plausible alternativesof what the futuremight have been
to what actuallyoccurredin the past. As Marc Bloch observed,
Whenthehistorianaskshimselfabouttheprobability of a pastevent,he actuallyattempts
to transport himself,by a boldexerciseof themind,to thetimebeforetheeventitself,in
orderto gaugeits chances,as theyappearedupontheeve of its realization. Hence,prob-
abilityremainsproperlyin thefuture.But sincetheline of thepresenthassomehowbeen
movedbackin theimagination, it is a futureof bygonetimesbuiltupona fragmentwhich,
for us, is actuallythepast.36

To gauge the probabilityof what actuallyhappened,the historianmust weigh the

probabilityof other equally plausible alternativehistories.
But how does the historian determinewhich alternativesare plausible, when
one could imagine an infinitenumberof differentscenarios?Niall Fergusoncon-
tends that "The answer to the question is very simple: We should consider as
plausible or probableonly those alternatives which we can show on the basis of
contemporaryevidence that contemporariesactually considered."37Thus, coun-
terfactualsare not just the product of imagination;like all historical inquiries,
they requirethe discipline of evidence. Geoffrey Hawthornasks, for example, if
the devastationwroughtby the bubonic plague was an unavoidablenaturaldis-
aster or a tragic accident.He considersalternativesthat show that the plague was
far from inevitable, but only after considering contemporaryevidence that sug-
gests thatalternativeswere possible.38In his historyof modernGermany,Hagen
Schulze offers five alternative"nineteenth-centuryGermanhistories,"including

35. All historiansseek patternsin the evidence of the past, not just universalhistorians.As William
McNeill has observed, "Patternrecognition of the sort historiansengage in is the chef d'oeuvre of
human intelligence. It is achieved by paying selective attentionto the total input of stimuli that per-
petually swarmin upon our consciousness. .... Patternrecognitionis what naturalscientists areup to;
it is what historianshave always done, whetherthey knew it or not." See "Mythistory,"in William H.
McNeill, Mythistoryand OtherEssays (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1986), 5.
36. Cited in Niall Ferguson, VirtualHistory: Alternatives and Counterfactuals(Basic Books,
1997), 84.
37. Ibid., 86.
38. Geoffrey Hawthorn, Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the
Social Sciences (Cambridge,Eng.: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991), 39-80.
86 DAVID J. STALEY

a democraticGermany,a Germanydominatedby both Prussia and Austria, and

a Germany featuring neither Prussia nor Austria, suggesting that the rise of
Bismarck was not the only logical outcome of the Revolution of 1848.39These
scenarios are built from an assessment of the evidence and are not simply fanci-
ful stories. Limiting alternativesto what the availableevidence suggests "renders
counterfactualhistory practicable."40
Rather than transportingour imaginations into the past, historians inquiring
into the futuremay use the same counterfactualtechniques in our present. Only
evidence makes a future scenario "futurible."This is a term coined by Bertrand
de Jouvenel, who wrote that "a future state of affairs enters into the class of
'futuribles'only if its mode of productionfrom the presentstate of affairsis plau-
sible and imaginable."Aviation, for example, was not possible for the ancients;
it became futurible"only when certainnew facts made its developmentconceiv-
able," such as technological developments early in the twentieth century.41
Although de Jouvenel uses the term "new facts," a historiancould easily substi-
tute the word "evidence."In my future history of Japan,the scenario of greater
gender equality became futurible only when I found evidence of a small but
growing numberof stay-at-homedads. It was this evidence coupled with other
evidence that made that scenariomore plausible. "A futuribleis a descendantof
the present, a descendant to which we attach a genealogy," concludes de
Jouvenel. Evidence makes counterfactuals"practicable"and future scenarios
"futurible."
The historianthen writes conclusions after identifying the patternsin the evi-
dence. For the scenario writer,these conclusions take the form of multiple nar-
ratives; one must write at least three different stories in order to realistically
imagine the competing states toward which the future might be attracted.
Historiansof the past are accustomedto writingonly one "scenario";when writ-
ing a monographor article, we are not in the habit of presenting alternativesto
our thesis. Counterfactualhistory once again offers a useful model for how his-
torians might adopt the multiplicity of scenario thinking. Historians such as
Ferguson assert that history does not move along one inevitable path. Thus, to
study counterfactualsis to admitto the possibility of several paths the past might
have followed. As Hawthornobserves, as our explanations of past occurrences
become more convincing, we paradoxically must admit that alternativeswere
possible. "If such-and-sucha cause or combinationof causes had not been pres-
ent," he reasons, "things would have been different. If we do not believe they
would have been, we shouldnot give the causes or actions in questionthe impor-
tance we do."42If we believe Hitler caused the Second WorldWar,then we must
admit that if there were no Hitler there would have been a differentoutcome. To
believe in counterfactualsis to admit to at least two scenarios:the story of what
39. Hagen Schulze, Germany: A New History (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press,
1998), 147-167.
40. Ferguson, VirtualHistory, 87.
41. de Jouvenel, TheArt of Conjecture,18.
42. Hawthorn,Plausible Worlds,14.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 87

did happen, and the story of what might have happened.If historianscan imag-
ine rigorously composed alternativescenarios of the past, it is a relatively easy
step to then imagine multiple scenariosof the future.
Peter Schwartz wrote that a scenario describes how driving forces might
behave in the future based on how those forces behaved in the past. Schwartz
does not elaborateon what this might entail, althoughit appearshe is describing
the use of historicalanalogies. Recall that an analogy is a similarityin the midst
of apparentdifference. Patternsin present evidence might suggest similarities
with past situationsfrom which we can then imagine futureoutcomes. Evidence
for a rise in neo-Nazi activity in Germany,for example, might alertus to the pos-
sibility of a fascist resurgence.Analogies must be used with caution,however,for
we shouldnot forgetthatanalogies arenot law-like regularities,preciselybecause
they are comparisonsof different situations.In advising decision-makerson the
uses of history,RichardNeustadtand ErnestMay cautionthatthose who see only
the similaritiesin two situationsmight be blindsidedby the differences in those
situations.43Thus, while neo-Nazi activity is on the rise, Germansociety today is
less toleranttowardright-wing groups, and possesses much strongerdemocratic
institutionsthan in the 1930s. A case could be made, therefore,for both interpre-
tations based on the available evidence. In using historical analogies to think
aboutthe future,historiansare alreadythinking in termsof alternativescenarios:
the similarities suggest one possible outcome and the differences suggest other
possible outcomes. This appreciationof difference and similarity in historical
analogies makes the historian especially sensitive to alternativeoutcomes, and
thus well-qualifiedto write realistic scenarios aboutthe future.
Recall that Schwartz'sdefinitionindicated that the purpose of scenariothink-
ing is to envision the environmentwithin which events will occur, not the spe-
cific chronological procession of events. Thus, the scenarios historians write
would need to be synchronicnarratives,ratherthan the diachronicnarrativeswe
usually prefer. In describing the environment-the context--scenarios tend to
read more like structuralist "thick descriptions" rather than a diachronic
sequences of events. A descriptionof the environmentwould be analogous to a
physicist's qualitativedescriptionof a chaotic system, in that one is attempting
to describe the behaviorof the system as a whole.
Thinking structurallyand synchronicallymight be a difficult step for histori-
ans, however. Unlike anthropologists,historiansare trainedto favor events over
structures,short-termchange over long-termstabilities." Historianswho wish to
use the scenario method might wish to approachthe future as FernandBraudel
approachedthe past. Braudel wrote that events are fleeting and ephemeral,and
thus arguedthathistoriansshould write instead aboutstructures,those stable ele-
ments of the past thatprovidedlimits on the actions of humans.45While we might
43. See Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History by
Decision-Makers(New York:The Free Press, 1986), 34-57.
44. For a discussion of structureand event in history and anthropology,see Marshall Sahlins,
Islands of History (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1985).
45. FernandBraudel,On History (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1980), 27, 31.
88 DAVID J. STALEY

not be able to predictevents, we mightbe able to imagine a futurestructurewith-

in which events may occur. Think of this example: imagine a swarm of gnats
moving toward a light. A photographicplate recording the three-dimensional
movement of the gnats would reveal a rough two-dimensionalcircularshape,the
structureof the gnats' movements. Thus, while we might not be able to predict
the path of the gnats, we could imagine the boundarieswithin which those flights
might occur.46 In writing scenarios as descriptionsof an environment,the histo-
rian should emphasize the context which may produce events, not the events
themselves. Thinking in terms of a procession of events is indicative of a pre-
dictive mindset;structuraldescriptionsof many plausiblefutureenvironmentsis
closer to the heuristicthinkingof the scenario method.47
The final act of historical thinkinginvolves reading the works of other histo-
rians, and assessing the validity of the narrativeso created. Historianscritique
the choice of evidence, the interpretationof that evidence, the tone and word
choice of the narrative,and the resultingconclusions. Historiansengage in his-
toriographical debates about interpretation;the "secondary literature"gives
shape to the kinds of questions we ask and the interpretationswe make aboutthe
past. Those questions and interpretationsare always shifting, as historiansrevise
their stories aboutthe past. While there are many parallelsbetween the historical
method and scenario writing, at present this historiographicalstep is largely
missing from the scenario method and from the futurist literature generally.
Futuristsare not usually in the habit of critiquingthe predictionsof others, nor
do they identify a historiographical"secondaryliterature"when writing scenar-
ios or making predictions.
I believe this integralpart of historicalthinking would enhance scenariowrit-
ing and our understandingof the future. Historiographicaldebate would rein-
force the notion that thinking about the future is a disciplined interpretiveact
ratherthan a predictiveact. Ourknowledge of the futureis even more incomplete
than of the past. We have even less evidence of the future,and thus any statement
aboutthe futurecan only provide the basis for a provisionalmodel. But because
of our experiences with writing about the past, historians are in a particularly
good position to explore the historiographicaldimensionsof scenariowriting.As
new evidence aboutthe futurebecomes available, or as historiansoffer new his-
toriographicalperspectivesfrom which to think aboutthe future,"futurible"pos-
sibilities would emerge. In the face of these changes, like any other historical
inquiry, historianswould reexamine the received picture(s) of the future, alter
their interpretations,jettison old models, write new narratives,and consequently
create new picturesof the future.Applying historical thinking to the domain of
the future would replace the singulardefinitive predictionwith multiple stories
writtenby historiansengaged in continuousconversationand debate. Historical

46. This example comes from Douglas Hofstadter,MetamagicalThemas:Questingfor the Essence

of Mind and Pattern (New York:Basic Books, 1985), 255.
47. I make this argumentin "Realisticand Responsible Imagination:Orderingthe Past to Envision
the Futureof Technology,"FuturesResearch Quarterly14 (Fall 1998), 29-39.
 A HISTORYOF THE FUTURE 89

thinking would make the future a domain of inquiry as contentious and thus as
intellectuallyrigorous as the past.
Imagine this scenario:scholarlyjournals like the AmericanHistorical Review
publish articles with titles like "JapaneseGender Equality, 2010-2050" and
"Restructuringthe AmericanCity in the 2040s" which coexist alongside articles
aboutthe past. Both articlesoffer new interpretationsof these futureterrains,and
begin with an assessment of earlier efforts to understandthe future of Japanese
gender relations and Americanurbanpolitics. These articles are peer reviewed,
their authorsdemonstratingcareful primarysource researchwhich situates the
narrativewithin some broaderinterpretivecontext. Peer reviewers insist on sev-
eral mutuallyexclusive scenarios,and assess the validity of each scenariobefore
acceptingthe article for publication.Occasionally,these journalspublish histori-
ographicalforums, debates among historianson some interestingproblem about
the future. Or consider this scenario: historians interested in inquiring into the
future create their own specialized journal, entitled Subjunctivity:A Journal of
Historical Plausibility. In additionto scenariosof the future,thejournalincludes
well-constructedpeer-reviewed counterfactualscenarios. The journal has wide
readership,not only among professional historians but among politicians, deci-
sion-makers,and corporateexecutives as well as the generalpublic, who are fas-
cinated with stories of what might be. Readersof the journal seek flexible alter-
natives ratherthan rigid predictions, realistic plausibility ratherthan hubristic
certainty.These readers appreciatethat there is nothing more dangerous than
visionaries convinced of the inevitability of their vision. The appearance of
books like Wagar'sA ShortHistory of the Future suggests thatboth of these sce-
narios are "futurible."
Historians are well qualified to write imaginative, disciplined, and realistic
histories of the future.And by historiansI do not mean only universalhistorians
or speculativephilosophersof history;my contentionhere is that all profession-
ally trained historians possess the skills necessary to think about the future.
"History,like poetry and song," concludes Michael Stanford,"is a way of using
language."48Historiansmight redefine the study of the future as "a way to use
language."While we have traditionallyappliedour skills to the study of the past,
we could, with only minimal intellectual adjustment,face in the other temporal
directionand fix our gaze upon the future.The result would be an unconventional
sort of history,but recognizablyhistory nonetheless.

Heidelberg College

48. Stanford,The Nature of Historical Knowledge, 130.