
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
As the world confronts the fast catastrophe of Covid and the slow calamity of climate change, we also face a third, less visible emergency: a crisis of imagination. We can easily picture ecological disaster or futures dominated by technology. But we struggle to imagine a world in which people thrive and where we improve our democracy, welfare, neighbourhoods or education. Many are resigned to fatalism—yet they desperately want transformational social change.
This book argues that, although the threats are real, we can use creative imagination to achieve a better future: visualising where we want to go and how to get there. Political and social thinker Geoff Mulgan offers lessons we can learn from the past, and methods we can use now to open up thinking about the future and spark action.
Drawing on social sciences, the arts, philosophy and history, Mulgan shows how we can recharge our collective imagination. From Socrates to Star Wars, he provides a roadmap for the future.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The Present: Imagination Stalled
- 2. What Is Imagination?
- 3. The Past: How Imagination Shaped Our World
- 4. Patterns: Making Sense of Imagination
- 5. The Future: How to Re-Energise Our Collective Imagination
- 6. From Ideas to Action: Possibilities for the Decades Ahead
- 7. Sources: Where Do Ideas Come From?
- 8. Pathways: Where Do Ideas Go?
- 9. The Limits of Imagination
- 10. Dangerous Imagination
- 11. Competing Political Imaginaries
- 12. Imagining Government in New Ways
- 13. Imagining a More Advanced Consciousness and a Wiser Society
- 14. Situating Imagination in Time
- 15. The Role of Art in Social Imagination
- 16. What to Do?
- Appendix 1: A Rough Theory of Social Imagination
- Appendix 2: Some Prompts for Imagination
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Index
- Back Cover