You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future

by Jonathon Keats

Overview

A compelling call to apply Buckminster Fuller's creative problem-solving to present-day problems A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist," the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and life-long devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death. You Belong to the Universe documents Fuller's six-decade quest to "make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity." Critic and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats sets out to revive Fuller's unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller's philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller's life. Keats argues that Fuller's life and ideas, namely doing "the most with the least," are now more relevant than ever as humanity struggles to meet the demands of an exploding world population with finite resources. Delving deeply into Buckminster Fuller's colorful world, Keats applies Fuller's most important concepts to present-day issues, arguing that his ideas are now not only feasible, but necessary. From transportation to climate change, urban design to education, You Belong to the Universe demonstrates that Fuller's holistic problem-solving techniques may be the only means of addressing some of the world's most pressing issues. Keats's timely book challenges each of us to become comprehensive anticipatory design scientists, providing the necessary tools for continuing Fuller's legacy of improving the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199338252
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	808 KB

About the Author

Jonathon Keats is a writer, artist and experimental philosopher. He is recently the author of the story collection The Book of the Unknown (Random House), winner of the American Library Association's 2010 Sophie Brody Medal, as well as Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology (2010) and Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age (2013), both published by OUP.

Table of Contents

GUINEA PIG B The Buckminster Fuller Myth HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD WORK Six Visions I. Mobility: The Dymaxion Car II. Shelter: The Dymaxion House III. Education: Two-Way TV IV. Planning: The Geoscope V. Environment: The Dome Over Manhattan VI. Peace: The World Game THE RANDOM ELEMENT The Buckminster Fuller Legacy

Editorial Reviews

02/15/2016
Architect and designer Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) may no longer hold the kind of counterculture cachet he had in the 1960s, but writer and artist Keats (Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age) emphasizes his ideas without ignoring his often controversial accomplishments in a biography that manages to be enthusiastic without descending into hagiography. Fuller—a Harvard dropout, autodidact, and relentless self-promoter—believed that technology would liberate man from work and make politics unnecessary. He thrilled audiences “at least until the buzz wore off the following morning,” though Keats points out that Fuller’s designs did sometimes match his hype. The geodesic dome remains a breakthrough, far lighter and stronger than traditional dome designs. Fuller’s Dymaxion world map portrays continents with much less distortion than the popular Mercator or Gall-Peters projections and helped him promote his technocratic “world game” solution to the world’s problems. His three-wheeled Dymaxion car had no particular advantages, but his Dymaxion house design—circular, domed, and sheathed in aluminum—was strong, lightweight, cheap to manufacture, and easy to assemble, though only one prototype was ever built and lived in. Keats’s insightful account of this impressive American innovator reveals a man who managed to be “both corporate and antiestablishment,” more pragmatic than concerned with resolving contradictions. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"A wonderfully written and highly necessary book about one of the 20th century's most enigmatic outliers." — Douglas Coupland, author and artist

"Brilliantly challenging Buckminster Fuller's self-mythologizing by putting Fuller's life and ideas in their historical context, Jonathon Keats is all the more able to identify the ways of thinking that were truly original in Fuller's own time, and the concepts that can address today's environmental and technological dilemmas. Keats's sympathetic but firm critique of Fuller, and his own suggestions for the human future, make this book a must for Fuller enthusiasts and skeptics alike - in fact, for everyone aspiring to think outside the dome." — Edward Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back and Our Own Devices

"Jonathon Keats audaciously tackles the grandiose Buckminster Fuller, debunking Fuller's legend while extending his inventive thinking for our present day. Sometimes it takes a real visionary to know one." — Bruce Sterling, author of Tomorrow Now and Holy Fire

"I loved reading Jonathon Keats's fascinating book on one of my favorite thinkers and optimists, Buckminster Fuller. Keats illuminates how Fuller's daring mind predicted the Internet, MOOCs, Netflix, and much more. Even if some of his ideas didn't work out, it's so refreshing to inhabit Fuller's insatiably curious mind that truly believed we could design ourselves into a better future." — Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards, creator of the show "The Future Starts Here"

"R. Buckminster Fuller was born in privilege, educated by experience and his own intuition, and created his own myth. Along the way he enriched human existence with inventions such as the geodesic dome and revolutionary concepts about peace and our place in the environment. Jonathon Keats has done a superb job of distinguishing fact from legend and refocusing our attention on Fuller's thoughts and perceptions. The work of a remarkable man has yielded a remarkable book." — Michael Hiltzik, author of Big Science

"Keats' excellent book on Buckminster Fuller recalls a remarkable life in engineering and beyond, an underestimated and underappreciated life. Fuller's tale reminds us that the future is best predicted by those who invent it." — Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist

"Was Buckminster Fuller a dreamer, a genius, or a deluded crackpot? In his fascinating book Jonathon Keats shows that Fuller was all three—and that his vision of a design-driven global ecosystem in which humans live harmoniously with nature is more pertinent now than ever before. More than just a biography of the man and his ideas, Keats's book is an inspiring call to action." — Laura J. Snyder, author of Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing

"Buckminster Fuller is perhaps one of the most unrecognized visionaries of the 20th Century. In You Belong to the Universe, Jonathon Keats unpacks the many eccentric details of Fuller's life, and explores the implications of Fuller's designs and blueprints for a better society.... Keats presents an interesting look at the way innovation has transformed from Fuller's day into the energy and cost-saving practices that are being explored today."
— The Manhattan Book Review

"Like his formidable intellect, Fuller's self-mythology was an elastic tool he stretched to suit the audience and the occasion at hand. In vivid prose that details all of Fuller's eccentricities and achievements, Keats strips away the icon's layers to reveal a truer, even more fascinating portrait of the 20th century genius." — Discover Magazine

"If Fuller is better known for objects than ideas, that's partly because of the complexity of how he thought.... It's a reflectiveness that's present in the book, which is a fascinating read." — Fast Company

"It's become cliché for people in tech to say they want to make the world better. But Fuller meant it. In You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, Keats explores Fuller's life and work with an eye toward what companies like Google and Tesla Motors owe a man who (for real) wanted to change the world." — Wired

"In You Belong to the Universe, Keats offers a new perspective on the legacy of R. Buckminster Fuller and suggests that his timeless approach to design could affect global change." — Discovery News

"Keats emphasizes [Buckminster Fuller's] ideas without ignoring his often controversial accomplishments in a biography that manages to be enthusiastic without descending into hagiography.... Keats's insightful account of this impressive American innovator reveals a man who managed to be 'both corporate and antiestablishment,' more pragmatic than concerned with resolving contradictions." — Publishers Weekly

"You Belong to the Universe says more about Fuller and his future in a few pages than some whole biographies, and renews one's interest—if not faith—in all those graduate design shows." — New Scientist

"Readers coming for an illuminating biography of one of technology's most colourful characters won't be disappointed. What they'll get as well though is a primer in a way of thinking about innovation that warrants a revival." -Engineering & Technology Magazine

"[Keats's] even-handed treatment of Fuller's failures and successes enables him to tease out their lessons. One can read Keats's book as a thought experiment about how the future might be designed." -The Los Angeles Review of Books

"[Keats] makes a tremendous case for why the eccentric ideas of the erstwhile visionary matter today. With admirable concision and a prose style as delightful as it is rigorous, Keats critically examines six of Fuller's most important ideas, ending each section with a 'proposition' of his own that builds on-and often goes far beyond-his predecessor's original. In what becomes a kind of collaboration between two like minds separated by a century, Fuller's soaring mission to 'make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity' is given new-and newly plausible-life." -Brooklyn Rail

From the Publisher