The Discontinuous Future: A Bold but Overoptimistic Forecast

In a world sardine-stuffed with ever- narrower monographs, at a time when grand theory is scorned, the notion of progress is regarded as naive, and quantification rules the intellectual universe, it is refreshing to come upon Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal. Throwing caution to the wind, they set out to map 20,000 years of human history. Trekking across disciplinary boundaries, they bring back the message that progress, after all, is alive and well.

It requires courage, especially for academics and researchers, to risk being labeled "futurologists"-a word unfairly freighted in Britain and the United States with connotations of selling snake