Here are 100 books that Introduction to Anticipation Studies fans have personally recommended if you like Introduction to Anticipation Studies. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Future: A Very Short Introduction

Rick Szostak Author Of Making Sense of the Future

From my list on the future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have read the future studies literature for decades. A few years ago an alumnus suggested that my university should create a course about the future. My dean encouraged me to look into it. On reading Bishop and Hines, Teaching About the Future, I was struck by the maturity of the field, the strength of their program that they describe, and the fact that they bemoan the lack of a book that could introduce newcomers to the field. I decided that I could write such a book, combining the latest research in the field with my own understandings of interdisciplinarity, world history, economics, and political activism.

Rick's book list on the future

Rick Szostak Why Rick loves this book

I like the way that the author first provides a history of both the idea of the future and the field of future studies.

She shows how the field has come to appreciate that we cannot predict the future reliably, but can identify both plausible futures and desirable futures, and explore how to move from one to the other. She then explores key characteristics of plausible futures. There is a lot of information in a short book.

By Jennifer M. Gidley ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Future as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the beginning of time, humans have been driven by both a fear of the unknown and a curiosity to know. We have always yearned to know what lies ahead, whether threat or safety, scarcity or abundance. Throughout human history, our forebears tried to create certainty in the unknown, by seeking to influence outcomes with sacrifices to gods, preparing for the unexpected with advice from oracles, and by reading the stars through astrology. As scientific methods
improve and computer technology develops we become ever more confident of our capacity to predict and quantify the future by accumulating and interpreting patterns…


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Book cover of The High House

The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

Book cover of The Meaning of the 21st Century: a Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future

Rick Szostak Author Of Making Sense of the Future

From my list on the future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have read the future studies literature for decades. A few years ago an alumnus suggested that my university should create a course about the future. My dean encouraged me to look into it. On reading Bishop and Hines, Teaching About the Future, I was struck by the maturity of the field, the strength of their program that they describe, and the fact that they bemoan the lack of a book that could introduce newcomers to the field. I decided that I could write such a book, combining the latest research in the field with my own understandings of interdisciplinarity, world history, economics, and political activism.

Rick's book list on the future

Rick Szostak Why Rick loves this book

This book provides a very broad survey of trends that are likely to affect our collective future and actions that can be taken to achieve desirable ends.

He is especially good in his coverage of technological developments. Though technology is changing very rapidly, I still found the book to be full of great insights into what trends to watch and what to do about them

By James E Martin ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Meaning of the 21st Century as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

James Martin, one of the world's most widely respected authorities on the impact of technology on society, argues that we are living at a turning point in human history. 'We are travelling at breakneck speed into an era of extremes - extremes of wealth and poverty, extremes in technology, extremes in globalization. If we are to survive, we must learn how to manage them all.' Although we face huge challenges and conflicts, Martin argues that it is in the scientific breakthroughs of the new century that we will find new hope. In a clear, penetrating and insightful style he addresses…


Book cover of Realistic Hope: Facing Global Challenges

Rick Szostak Author Of Making Sense of the Future

From my list on the future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have read the future studies literature for decades. A few years ago an alumnus suggested that my university should create a course about the future. My dean encouraged me to look into it. On reading Bishop and Hines, Teaching About the Future, I was struck by the maturity of the field, the strength of their program that they describe, and the fact that they bemoan the lack of a book that could introduce newcomers to the field. I decided that I could write such a book, combining the latest research in the field with my own understandings of interdisciplinarity, world history, economics, and political activism.

Rick's book list on the future

Rick Szostak Why Rick loves this book

The book addresses a dozen key challenges in our collective future.

Though the chapters are uneven in quality, I found that the book had many good ideas on how to address these challenges. The editors encourage broad community consultations regarding our futures, systems analysis of how challenges interact, and policy experimentation.

By Angela Wilkinson (editor) , Betty Sue Flowers (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Realistic Hope as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We are running out of water, robots will take our jobs, we are eating ourselves to an early death, old age pension and health systems are bankrupting governments, and an immigration crisis is unravelling the European integration project. A growing number of nightmares, perfect storms, and global catastrophes create fear of the future. One response is technocratic optimism - we'll invent our way out of these impending crises. Or we'll simply ignore them as politically too hot to handle, too uncomfortable for experts - denied until crisis hits. History is littered with late lessons from early warnings. Cynicism is an…


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Book cover of The Guardian of the Palace

The Guardian of the Palace by Steven J. Morris,

The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.

When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…

Book cover of Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most

Rick Szostak Author Of Making Sense of the Future

From my list on the future.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have read the future studies literature for decades. A few years ago an alumnus suggested that my university should create a course about the future. My dean encouraged me to look into it. On reading Bishop and Hines, Teaching About the Future, I was struck by the maturity of the field, the strength of their program that they describe, and the fact that they bemoan the lack of a book that could introduce newcomers to the field. I decided that I could write such a book, combining the latest research in the field with my own understandings of interdisciplinarity, world history, economics, and political activism.

Rick's book list on the future

Rick Szostak Why Rick loves this book

This is a pleasure to read and full of good ideas.

Most of the book deals with errors in how people make future-oriented decisions, and how we can overcome these errors. Yet the author also has good advice about how we should go about predicting plausible futures. He notes that experts with a flexible worldview make better predictions than those who follow a narrow belief or ideology.

By Steven Johnson ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Farsighted as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Plenty of books offer useful advice on how to get better at making quick-thinking, intuitive choices. But what about more consequential decisions, the ones that affect our lives for years, or centuries, to come? Our most powerful stories revolve around these kinds of decisions: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war.

Full of the beautifully crafted storytelling and novel insights that Steven Johnson's fans know to expect, Farsighted draws lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, environmental planning, and great works of literature. Everyone thinks we are…


Book cover of Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage

Wayne E. Lee Author Of The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800

From my list on war beyond the state.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been writing about and teaching military history for many years (I'm a professor at the University of North Carolina), mostly focused on the pre-industrial world, and mostly about the maelstrom of the North Atlantic colonial experience (including warfare in Ireland, England, and in North America). I quickly decided that I needed to do more to understand the Native American perspective, and that also meant understanding the very nature of their societies: Not just how they fought, but how they imagined the function of war. This book is the product of constantly returning to that problem, while also putting it into a world comparative context of other non-state experiences of war. 

Wayne's book list on war beyond the state

Wayne E. Lee Why Wayne loves this book

This one too takes on a much longer sweep of human history than most, here focusing on the role of resource competition in generating and shaping war among humans around the world. 

LeBlanc is an archaeologist who specialized in the desert Southwest of what's now the United States, and he is very concerned with the academic tendency to "pacify" the past. This is an excellent survey of the long role of war in societal competition, and the likely continued role of resource competition in wars to come.  

By Steven A LeBlanc , Katherine E Register ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Constant Battles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With armed conflict in the Persian Gulf now upon us, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war, presenting a controversial thesis: The notion of the "noble savage" living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy. In Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.

The start of the second major U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf, combined with regular headlines about…


Book cover of The Archaeology of Race: The Eugenic Ideas of Francis Galton and Flinders Petrie

Angela Stienne Author Of Mummified: The Stories Behind Egyptian Mummies in Museums

From my list on why there’s an Egyptian mummy in your back garden.

Why am I passionate about this?

When at 13, I declared that I’d become an Egyptologist, quite a lot of people thought it would pass. Fast forward 10 years, and I was starting a PhD on Egyptian mummies in museums – it did not pass. I journeyed from the Louvre where I was a gallery attendant trying to uncover the story of bodies buried in their garden, to England where I relocated with little English to pursue an Egyptology degree… and then two more! The ethics of human remains in museums is a complex topic: that’s why I like to make it more approachable to the public, from running my project Mummy Stories, to giving talks in pubs! 

Angela's book list on why there’s an Egyptian mummy in your back garden

Angela Stienne Why Angela loves this book

This was the first book to introduce me to the relation between race studies, eugenics, and archaeology.

It was quite a revelation: I was volunteering at the Petrie Museum at the time, and the book uncovers the dodgy relationship between Petrie and Francis Galton.

It was pivotal in transforming the ways I looked at familiar places: it reminded me that places I called home, like the Petrie Museum but also the Louvre, have been very exclusionary to many. It taught me to look differently at places I navigate on a regular basis, to look for the other story.

You’ll then have to listen to the Bricks + Mortals podcast on the history of UCL buildings, and your wanders in Bloomsbury won’t be the same again.

By Debbie Challis ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Archaeology of Race as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How much was archaeology founded on prejudice? The Archaeology of Race explores the application of racial theory to interpret the past in Britain during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It investigates how material culture from ancient Egypt and Greece was used to validate the construction of racial hierarchies. Specifically focusing on Francis Galton's ideas around inheritance and race, it explores how the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie applied these in his work in Egypt and in his political beliefs. It examines the professional networks formed by societies, such as the Anthropological Institute, and their widespread use of eugenic ideas in analysing…


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Book cover of Oaky With a Hint of Murder

Oaky With a Hint of Murder by Dawn Brotherton,

Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…

Book cover of The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual

Gillian Gillison Author Of Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology

From my list on the anthropology of myth and ritual.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a family of beautiful, accomplished women at a time when most women stayed home. But the spectacular women in my mother's family also suffered spectacularly, and I was determined to understand family life at its very roots. I studied anthropology and, over a 15-year period, lived in a remote part of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea among a group of Gimi women who spent most of their time apart from men. I shared women's difficult daily lives, participated in their separate rites, learned their myths, and, through my writing, have devoted myself to giving them voices of their own.

Gillian's book list on the anthropology of myth and ritual

Gillian Gillison Why Gillian loves this book

A classic of ethnographic description and symbolic analysis based upon fieldwork among the Ndembu of Zambia—a must read for anyone interested in sociological and psychological implications of ritual belief and practice in a small-scale, non-literate, kinship-based society. 

A stellar example of what is lost by cancelling "colonialist" literature and discarding the very concepts of "culture" and "religion" as relics of Western intellectual imperialism. 

In 10 essays on color symbolism, circumcision rites, rites of passage, social dynamics, and more, Turner lays the groundwork for his proposition that ritual is the key to religion and religion is the key to culture. 

By Victor Turner ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Forest of Symbols as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A pioneering work of high quality, this collection of anthropological studies provides one of the most detailed records available for an African society-or indeed for any group-of the semantics of ritual symbolism. It combines unusually detailed ethnographic description, based upon field work among the Ndembu of Zambia, with remarkable theoretical sophistication. Professor Turner describes the ritual phenomena in terms both of practice and of their sociological and psychological implications within a preliterate society.

Case histories illustrate the function of ritual in creating community harmony. Data on circumcision rites and medical practices and an essay on color classification have wide implications…


Book cover of The Sexual Life of Savages in North Western Melanesia

Gillian Gillison Author Of She Speaks Her Anger: Myths and Conversations of Gimi Women: A Psychological Ethnography in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

From my list on anthropology to understand women's myths and rites.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a family of beautiful, accomplished women at a time when most women stayed home. But the spectacular women in my mother's family also suffered spectacularly, and I was determined to understand family life at its very roots. I studied anthropology and, over a 15-year period, lived in a remote part of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea among a group of Gimi women who spent most of their time apart from men. I shared women's difficult daily lives, participated in their separate rites, learned their myths, and, through my writing, have devoted myself to giving them voices of their own.

Gillian's book list on anthropology to understand women's myths and rites

Gillian Gillison Why Gillian loves this book

Still exciting after all these years! Perhaps because it is politically incorrect and unself-conscious. 

The cover blurb says it is an "investigation of the sex lives of the men and women of the Trobriand Islands and deals with prenuptial intercourse, marriage, divorce, pregnancy, erotic psychology, ritual, morals, and manners" – forbidden territory nowadays. 

I do not excuse the sexism and racism occasionally detectable, but think the detail, intimacy, and authorial reflexivity about a disappeared world are more valuable now than ever.  A century ahead of his time, Malinowski included himself in his observations and ideas about others. 

By Bronislaw Malinowski ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Sexual Life of Savages in North Western Melanesia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.


Book cover of Slavery as an Industrial System: Ethnological Researches

Ulbe Bosma Author Of The Making of a Periphery: How Island Southeast Asia Became a Mass Exporter of Labor

From my list on slavery in Asia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I find it crucially important that we acknowledge that slavery is a global phenomenon that still exists this very day. Dutch historians like me have an obligation to show that the Dutch East India Company, called the world’s first multinational, was a major slave trader and employer of slavery. I am also personally involved in this endeavour as I am one of the leaders of the “Exploring the Slave Trade in Asia” project, an international consortium that brings together knowledge on this subject, and is currently a slave trade in Asia database.

Ulbe's book list on slavery in Asia

Ulbe Bosma Why Ulbe loves this book

Nieboer did groundbreaking research on slavery outside the Atlantic world, and not the least on Southeast Asia. He was the first to propose a universal economic theory for the occurrence of slavery, namely that its existence was the result of a scarcity of labour in relation to the availability of land. After Evsey Domar expanded this argument to serfdom, it became known as the Nieboer-Domar hypothesis and has been widely cited both by historians and economic historians. In any talk about slavery and bondage in Southeast Asia I refer to this thesis to explain why slavery had practically disappeared in densely populated Java in the eighteenth century whereas it probably increased almost everywhere else in the Indonesian archipelago.

By H.J. Nieboer ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Slavery as an Industrial System as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ethnological researches.

Originally published 1900.


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Women and Analysis

Gillian Gillison Author Of She Speaks Her Anger: Myths and Conversations of Gimi Women: A Psychological Ethnography in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

From my list on anthropology to understand women's myths and rites.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a family of beautiful, accomplished women at a time when most women stayed home. But the spectacular women in my mother's family also suffered spectacularly, and I was determined to understand family life at its very roots. I studied anthropology and, over a 15-year period, lived in a remote part of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea among a group of Gimi women who spent most of their time apart from men. I shared women's difficult daily lives, participated in their separate rites, learned their myths, and, through my writing, have devoted myself to giving them voices of their own.

Gillian's book list on anthropology to understand women's myths and rites

Gillian Gillison Why Gillian loves this book

I am deeply persuaded by psychoanalysis as a rational scientific theory of the unconscious mind which, if it exists as Freud describes it, has a determining role in nearly every aspect of individual and social life among ourselves and exotic others. 

But most scholars, feminists especially (of whom I consider myself one), even when they acknowledge Freud's genius, "then proceed to dismiss the whole business as hopelessly out of date and culture-bound." 

This collection of essays, a series of paired expositions by classic thinkers and eminent scholars in many fields in dialogue with each other, provides an in-depth overview of the debate about 'women and analysis.' 

Book cover of The Future: A Very Short Introduction
Book cover of The Meaning of the 21st Century: a Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future
Book cover of Realistic Hope: Facing Global Challenges

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Interested in anthropology, future, and ontology?

Anthropology 110 books
Future 21 books
Ontology 25 books