Critical Path

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Macmillan, 1981 - History - 471 pages

Critical Path marks the masterwork of one of the finest minds and most significant thinkers of the modern age

R. Buckminster Fuller is regarded as one of the most important figures of the 20th century, renowned for his achievements as an inventor, designer, architect, philosopher, mathematician, and dogged individualist. Perhaps best remembered for the Geodesic Dome and the term "Spaceship Earth," his work and his writings have had a profound impact on modern life and thought.

Critical Path is Fuller's master work--the summing up of a lifetime's thought and concern--as urgent and relevant as it was upon its first publication in 1981. Critical Path details how humanity found itself in its current situation--at the limits of the planet's natural resources and facing political, economic, environmental, and ethical crises.

The crowning achievement of an extraordinary career, Critical Path offers the reader the excitement of understanding the essential dilemmas of our time and how responsible citizens can rise to meet this ultimate challenge to our future.

 

Contents

Speculative Prehistory of Humanity
3
Humans in Universe
25
Legally Piggily
60
SelfDisciplines of Fuller
123
The Geoscope
161
World Game
198
Critical Path Part One
229
Critical Path Part Two
252
Critical Path Part Three
270
Critical Path Part Four
309
Chronology of Scientific Discoveries and Artifacts
347
Chronological Inventory of Prominent Scientific Technological Economic and Political World Events 1895 to Date
378
Index
411
Copyright

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About the author (1981)

Richard Buckminster Fuller, the innovative thinker, engineer, and inventor, was born July 12, 1895 in Milton, Mass. Despite early failures and tragedies, including his being expelled from Harvard University twice and the death of his four-year-old daughter, Fuller went on to achieve many successes. He is best known for inventing the geodesic dome; his design has been used in structures all over the world. Besides Harvard, Fuller also attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and was a professor at Southern Illinois University. He is the author of Synergetics: Explanations in the Geometry of Thinking, a book that discusses the utopic role technology will play in the future. Critical Path is the book Fuller felt was his most important. It outlined his plan to rejuvenate earth through the use of technology. His last book, Grunch of Giants, summarizes his most important ideas.

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