The Future as History
The central idea of The Future of History is a simple one: that the near future, as a continuation of the recent past and being driven by the same continuing forces implies, in a loose way, that the near future has already happened.
The way I would put it myself is that predicting the future is a bit like predicting the weather- on one hand it is certainly chaotic, unpredictable and small events can exert themselves at key times to great effect. (Even a 90% chance of snow can result in no snow) But most times, there is no surprise- we can see the forces coming, going, shifting, and can guess where they may lead in the future. (Large forces, from the cyclical pace of the seasons, small ones, like the movements of storm clouds and masses of air.)
Although a complete understanding of the near future is probably impossible (at least for now), at the same time I still think there is much merit to the idea. Tracing the outlines of current trends and forces and extending them into the future, would give a rough view of what we could expect in the days ahead, and even the crudest, macroscopic outlook of the present would enrich our understanding of the future. And while there is always chaotic messiness that is difficult to predict, such messiness rarely eclipses the larger, dominating trends of the times.
(Aside, one wonders whether there had been even just a small amount of this foresight, whether the recent financial crisis could have been even the slightest bit lessened…)
