Das Projekt Futurologie

Reviewed by: Das Projekt Futurologie: Über Zukunft und Fortschritt in der Bundesrepublik 1952–1982 [The futurology project: About future and progress in West Germany, 1952–1982] by Achim Eberspächer Elke Seefried (bio) Das Projekt Futurologie: Über Zukunft und Fortschritt in der Bundesrepublik 1952–1982 [The futurology project: About future and progress in West Germany, 1952–1982] By Achim Eberspächer. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2019. Pp. 412. The future has become a central topic in the historical sciences. A specific focus has been placed on the field of futures studies. This field, also called future(s) research and futurology, attracted public and political attention in the 1960s and 1970s. Historical appraisals have explored transnational networks and have shown that, particularly for the West German case, the field emerged from competing epistemologies and "thought styles." Research highlighted processes of change around 1970, particularly an ecologization of the field (e.g., Schmidt-Gernig, "Forecasting the Future," 2003; Seefried, Zukünfte, 2017; Andersson, The Future of the World, 2018). In this book based on a Ph.D. thesis, Achim Eberspächer seeks to shed new light on the West German "Projekt Futurologie" as an "intellectual phenomenon" of the 1960s and 1970s (p. 16). His aim is to write a history of futurology as a "product of motives and actions of its protagonists, the intellectuals who carried the project" (p. 34). To this end, he focuses on three main German actors: Robert Jungk, Ossip Flechtheim, and Karl Steinbuch. Furthermore, the study explores the "potential as a science" attributed to futurology, the role of the media, and institutionalization processes. The first chapter presents the key figures' biographies and publications as well as the main technical visions discussed in the 1950s and early 1960s. The second chapter is devoted to the rise of futurology after 1963. In the main chapter, analyzing "climax and crisis," 1967 to 1970, the author describes public debates on futurology, noting that it was applauded by the media. His final chapter looks at the "decline and end," 1971 to 1982. Futurology, the author summarizes, rose and fell quickly, mainly due to its protagonists' "wrong decisions, conflicts, and misunderstandings" (p. 344). Eberspächer's readable study can partly complement scholarship by analyzing the rise and fall of the West German futurology "project." He illuminates public debates and the media's role more extensively than other studies. However, the story presented is not new, and the author does not fully engage with the existing literature. For instance, Eberspächer draws attention to the "Systems 69" conference. He describes the disputes that arose afterward as personal conflicts; for him, it was not different understandings of futurology and technical progress that led to the end of "personal unity" (p. 243). He does not consider the scholarship that pointed to diverging positions between positivistic and critical-emancipatory approaches to futures studies that were a fundamental cause of these conflicts. [End Page 914] More than once, Eberspächer's superficial reading of the literature results in strawman arguments. For instance, he rejects the thesis of American influence (p. 11) without backing this up sufficiently. However, scholarship has shown that the history of the strands of futures studies—of which futurology is one—cannot be written without considering transnational flows of knowledge. The 1960s "Western" futures field was mainly driven by techniques developed in U.S. think tanks that spread to Europe, as did knowledge on cybernetics, thus shaping for example Steinbuch's understanding of futurology. Transnational peace studies also played a central role in West German futurology. The study's methodological setting is not quite clear. The author understands futurology as an intellectual phenomenon and form of popular knowledge, partly derived from the process of conveying it to the public. Eberspächer points to "future creating" workshops, arguing that these had "little to do with the idea of a science of the future" (p. 329). Such a statement should have been based on the results of theoretical research. Scholarship has provided theories exploring the boundaries between science and the social. Futurology was not a "standard" science, but it interlinked science, civil movements, and the public, renegotiating the boundaries by promoting new forms of generating knowledge such as "future

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