Abstract:

A hundred years ago, as the eighteen hundreds were drawing to a close, there were many speculations about the shape of the coming century. In fact our forefathers seemed to have speculated more about the coming twentieth century than we speculate about the new millenium or the coming twenty first century. There were three areas of prophecy: the technology, the culture, and the social and political structure of the coming century. Most of the predictions were optimistic, wild and, of course, wrong.