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discusses the inclusion of ‘independent’ vari- ables. Chapters 10 and 11 describe the use of the

state space models in practice. Chapter 12 de- scribes the multi-process models including the model first presented in Harrison and Stevens (1971) to the OR community which attempted in include changes in the series behaviour such as an outlier, step or slope change as components in the overall model. The last three chapters discuss advanced topics including nonlinear modelling.

Overall it is an impressive, coherent presenta- tion. Certainly any researcher in the area would want a copy for his/her shelves. I found the book more intellectually satisfying than Harvey’s in that with barely a nod in the direction of other approaches to forecasting, West and Harrison present their particular viewpoint. It is at its least convincing in the case studies where no com- parisons are made with alternative approaches, ex post analysis is applied as if it were ex ante and little consideration is given to the question of user involvement in specifying priors or inter- ventions, despite this being a key argument in favour of a Bayesian formulation. Nor is the limited evidence on the comparative forecasting performance of the Bayesian models discussed (Mukridakis et al. (1982), Fildes (1983)).

The Bayesian approach also has its own meth- odological problems, for example, that of specifying the priors, which is addressed here as if any competent user could define appropriate distributions but I would observe that unless the remark is regarded as a truism this is just not correct. There is also the added difficulty of dealing with the error variances. (Harvey esti- mates them - it is computer intensive). A resolu- tion to this problem is attempted through the notion of the prior estimate of a discount factor which is neither intuitively obvious, nor empiri- cally satisfactory in that performance will often depend on these estimates. That is, of course, exactly why Harvey chooses to estimate these parameters.

In summary, both books are excellent re- search monographs which I hope will stimulate much further research. Where both books seem to me weakest is when it comes to the question, ‘do these approaches achieve in practice what they offer in theory’ where too little empirical evidence is presented.

References

Fildes. R. (lY83) An evaluation of Bay&an forecasting. J.

ForPcasting 2, 137-1.50.

Harrison P.J. and C. Stevens (1971) A Bayesian approach to

short term forecasting. 0~1. Res. Q. 22, 341-362.

Harrison, P.J. and C. Stevens (1976) Bayesian forecasting

(with discussion), J. R. Sfufisf. Sot (Ser. B) 3X. 205-247.

Makridakis, S.. A. Andersen, R. Carbone, R. Fildes, M.

Hibon. R. Lewandowski. J. Newton, E. Parzen and R.

Winkler (1982) The accuracy of extrapolation (time

series) methods. J. Forecasting 1. I1 l-153.

Robert Fildes

Lancaster University

Brian Burroughs, Alan Mayne and Paul New- bury, 1992, Into the 21st Century: A Handbook for a Sustainable Future (Adamantine Press, London), pp. 442, softback g15.95, hardback f32.50.

W. Warren Wagar, 1992, The Next Three Fu- tures: Paradigms of Things to Come (Adaman- tine Press, London), pp.xxi + 165, f13.95.

Twenty-first century fixes?

In the 1960s and early 197Os, when futures research efforts were widely established around the world, there was considerable interest in the year 2000. The iconic significance of this date was such as to add market value to book titles and research projects. Now, as the twentieth century nears its end, the theme of ‘21st Century Studies’ has gained ground. Whether the shelf- life of this label will extend into its eponymous century remains to be seen. At the present mo- ment it has wide currency. The two books under review are part of an ambitious series of 21st Century Studies being published by Adamantine Press.

The books share one thing in common -they are not forecasting efforts, but are rather guides to the futures field. They place less emphasis on presenting their own visions of the future, than as being resources for readers wanting to explore

the field - to construct their own scenarios. to situate studies they have read, or just for cnter- tainment, masochistic or otherwise.

T/lc Next Threr Futures is the work of a history professor. and grows out of his ex- pcricncc in teaching courses on the evolution of ideas about the future. The cryptic title is a reference to a structuring service he uses to survey recent literature on such ‘big themes’ as the future of the Earth, of wealth and power, of

war and peace. and of living (work. health. culture, and the like). Hc groups futurists. and

other influential authors who have made substan- tial contributions to thinking about the future. into three broad categories - liberals and tech- nolibcrals. radicals, Lilld counterculturalists. Each of the ‘big issues‘ is then inspected from the prism of each worldvicw (or paradigm, as Wagar prefers).

This approach has the great virtue of demon- strating that future studies have to engage with the impossibility of looking at long-term pros- pccts without examining one’s theoretical (and

practical) commitments.’ It also provides for an entertaining odyssey through the contemporary futures field. But readers should be warned that there is a 11 excessive bias toward North American authors. A scan of the bibliography suggests that other sourccb only really Scot-c as

rcpresentativcs of the radical worldvicw - and as scicncc fiction writers. It could well be argued that this reflects where the real bulk of futurca production comes from - in quantity if not in clualitv. But even so there is a problem of rcpre- sentativencss, and citations to non-North American work mainly concern founding tigurcs or prominent contributors from outside the field. rather than current research. Furthermore, parts of the text already look very stale - thus we read about the future role of the USSR and the like.

Irlto t/w Twetrty-F’irst Century lacks some of

the crispness of The Next Three Futures, resem- bling nothing so much as a Whole Earth Cutdogue. without the illustrations. This is really a guide to the futures literature, with special emphasis on problems of environment of sustain- able development. and on new paradigms - by which is meant a variety of purportedly holistic approaches, ranging from systems thinking to theories of Gaia and the noosphere. The final section of the book breaks away from the bib- liographic cataloguing to outline several scenarios for the world’s future (the ‘pessimistic’, ‘piecemeal and ‘optimistic’ scenarios are not at all badly done), and en route there are discus- sions of forecasting methods. impact assessment and related topics.

While the authors’ values are clearly enough stated, there has been little attempt to present only ‘politically correct’ material. Thus, and as a handy guide to a diverse set of literatures. there is much to recommend this book. Predictably. there arc abscnccs in such a collection, and some sections (especially that on global modelling) do not really capture the more recent developments in the field. Some important concepts are used loosely and misleadingly, e.g. ‘holistic’. The au- thors’ credibility is weakened by their tendency to summarisc certain viewpoints uncritically. e.g. de Chardin’s dreamy ideas about the ‘noosphere’. which get a large chunk of a chap- ter. Such areas of woolliness sit uneasily along- side thorough and useful reviews of various en- vironmental and technological issues.

What do these two books tell us about the state of future studies’? They portray the field as one that is creative and beginning to develop a cumulative tradition. But it also emerges as mc

beset by quality control problems, and still un- certain as how to reconcile its knowledge claims with the divcrsc political missions of its prac- titioners. Even if a new century were not in the offing, serious features studies would be abso- lutely necessary at this critical point in human history. But the ticld still has to gain more of a self-critical approach. with futurists being clear about where their goals and methods stand in relation to those of other practitioners. It rc- mains to bc seen whether the Adamantinc Press series can continue to promote this goal: it will riced to move towards publishing serious futures

Rook reviews 639

studies rather than such overviews of the litera- ture. I am loath to forecast that by the twenty- first century the field will have matured in the ways needed-but it is more than just a pious hope that it might do so.

References

Freeman C. and M. Jahoda (eds). 1988. World Futures: the Grrar Dehure. Martin Robertson. London.

Hughes. B., 19X5. World Futures: (I Criricul Analysis of Atternafives. John Hopkins University Press. Baltimore,

MD.

Ian Miles

University of Manchester, UK

Union of International Associations, 1991, Ency- clopedia of World Problems and Human Poten- tial (K.G. Saur, Munich), Vol. 1, 950 pp; Vol. 2, 1188 pp.. hardcover, ISBN 3-598-10842-7, us$400.00.

How does one grasp the meaning of an en- cylopedia that totals more than 2000 pages. each page being equal to about ten pages in an ordi- nary book? A few back-of-the-envelope calcula- tions show that the entire encyclopedia is rough- ly equivalent to 30-40 books.

The task is greatly compounded because the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential is so unusually complex that it arouses conflicting reactions, in this reviewer at least. As I will try to explain in this review, the work is at once both baffling and edifying, both brilliant and dense, useless and fascinating.

Even the organization of the encyclopedia almost defies understanding. I kept the two vol- umes on my desk for weeks, alternatively struggling to decipher the basic structure of the work and then retreating out of frustration until the deadline for this review approached. To be honest, I am still not quite sure I have it entirely right, but a few key features stand out:

l Volume 1 contains a summary of 13 000 prob- lems confronting the world, broken down into

eight sections distinguishing different types of problems: abstract problems, basic universal problems, cross-sectoral problems, detailed problems, etc.

l Volume 2 contains a complementary listing of world potential, consisting of five major sec- tions: 4051 concepts of human development, 2700 modes of awareness, 600 approaches to integrative thought, and the like.

l The entries in both volumes have an assigned number and name, a one- to three-paragraph description, cross-references to other listings, and references to the literature.

l The cross-listings are extensive and carefully thought-out to define ‘broader’ categories, ‘narrower’ categories, ‘related categories’, and the like. A total of 80000 such links connects the 13 000 entries in Volume 1 together into a network of problems.

l Each volume also contains an introduction, an index to all entries, a bibliography containing all literary references, and miscellaneous notes. Individual sections in Volume 2 also contain their own sub-indices, bibliographies, and notes, however, which hints at the more abstruse complexities to come.

From here on things get rather murky. The first ominous sign that we are dealing with an unusual mode of logic occurs when one realizes that all of these diligently prepared entries are listed in an entirely arbitrary sequence, and even the entry numbers do not form a complete se- quence. The first entry, for instance, is ‘PA0005 Secrecy’. While this may seem illogical at first, in fact, the authors have a profound rationale for this approach:

Entries. . are not grouped according to any classification scheme [to] avoid the impression that such classification can be done in an unambiguous and satisfactory manner.

The random nature of this classification struc- ture reveals the deeper purpose of the ency- clopedia. It does not aim to organize the world’s problems and potentials into some coherent order because the widely felt impulse for impos- ing order on the on the world is precisely the cause of our common inability to resolve these problems. The authors make an eloquent argu-