Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity FIRST EDITION

Fuller, R. Buckminster; Kuromiya, Kiyoshi (Adjuvant)

ISBN 10: 0025418505 / ISBN 13: 9780025418509

Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1992

About this Item

First Edition. Hardcover. First Edition with full number line indicating First Printing. 9 1/2" X 6 1/4". viii, 277pp. Mild creasing, rubbing, and shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of unclipped dust jacket. Bound in maroon paper over boards with spine backed in black and lettered in gilt. Gentle rubbing and bumps to corners and edges of boards. Dust-spotting to edges of text block. Light toning to endpapers. Previous owner's name in ink to title page. Faint musty smell to unmarked pages. Binding is sound. With related article from Science News titled "Buckyballs Still Charm: Scientists Ponder the Surprising Properties of C60 and Its Siblings" laid in. Buckminster Fuller (1895 1983) was an American architect, designer, inventor, and futurist known for his innovative thinking and commitment to solving global challenges. He is most famous for popularizing the geodesic dome, a lightweight, efficient structure used in architecture and engineering. Fuller was a pioneer of sustainability and believed in using design to improve humanity's quality of life. His concepts, such as "Spaceship Earth," emphasized the interconnectedness of people and the planet. He authored numerous books, including Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, and inspired generations of thinkers with his visionary ideas. "ON THE DAY THAT R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER died at age 87 in 1983, I found the entire Cosmograpy manuscript, which we had been working on, neatly stacked in the middle of an uncharacteristically tidy desk in his study at his Pacific Palisades, California, home. Atop the manuscript was a note addressed to his daughter Allegra (Snyder), and his grandson Jaime and granddaughter Alexandra. It began, "If something happens to me and I [should] die suddenly, I want you to know of the extraor- dinary importance of my now being written book Cosmography . . . "THIS BOOK, ITS ORGANIZATION AND CONTENTS, were conceived as a whole and nurtured through to virtual completion by Fuller during his last four years of life. All of the vocabulary and concepts originate in Fuller's mind, and the way they are phrased is his. I have served as adjuvant, a term Fuller borrowed from medicine (specifically immunology) in 1980 to designate my role in the writing of Critical Path-that of a "helper" in transcribing and editorially refining for publication his ideas, words, and extemporaneous "thinking out loud. " ln Cosmography, as in Critical Path, I have served in this Fuller-designated role to preserve the idiosyncratic concepts, tone, syntax, and phraseology of Fuller in preparing the manuscript for publication. If it has strayed at all from his original conception, the blame is mine. If it is a faithful representationof his methodology and thought, the credit goes to him and his insistent and uncompromising resoluteness. I have not attempted to flesh out those few parts of the book that Fuller left unfinished. I hope the reader will patiently bear with us, as many have during the eight years that have passed between Fuller's death and the publication of this long-awaited final book. Fuller would perhaps attribute this span of time to nature's own purposeful system of gestation rates." (Kiyoshi Kuromiya, Adjuvant).

Seller Inventory # 16732

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity FIRST EDITION
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishing Company, New York
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0025418505
• ISBN 13: 9780025418509
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science & Nature

About this title

Synopsis

Explains the concept of synergetics and its relationship with politics and history to illustrate the crucial link between humanity and nature

Reviews

Fuller's last work, nearly finished when he died in 1983, is composed of short sweeps--for Fuller--of afterthought, and some additions, to the main themes of his previous books. As always, Fuller spikes his science with anthropology and sociology, as he did in Critical Path (1981) and Syngergetics I and II (1971-1979), but for hardcore Fuller fans the heart of this book will be the long chapter called "Cosmic Conceptioning." This section includes a note Fuller wrote to himself, at his wife's hospital bed, on "spheric experiences" of the structure of gases--a raw example of Fuller's special "geometry of thinking." (It is dated 1983 and signed "with thanks to God, the eternal sum of all truths.") "History of Structure," on the other hand, reads like a guest-lecture speech, summarizing the future world millenium according to Fuller. While obtuse wording, such as "omninteraccelerating cosmic concept" can seem to mock his brilliant insights into the grand geometry of structures, topology, chemistry, metallurgy and, perhaps, society, nearly a decade after his death, Fuller is still ahead of the parade.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fuller was one of the truly original thinkers of the 20th century. This book is a collection of his thoughts about life, progress, and humanity's role in the universe as he voiced them during the last four years of his life. Transcribed by his "adjuvant" Kiyoshi Kuromiya, they range over a panoply of topics. Among other things, he attempts to explain politics, sociology, economics, and history by metaphorically extending physical and mathematical structures to describe human behavior. Although modesty was not his strongest point, Fuller was undeniably an exceptional person. His fame alone suggests that libraries should add this book to their collection. However, most readers will find it difficult to understand.
- Harold D. Shane, Baruch Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.