Rethinking the Future is the story of a relationship between two highly origi-nal thinkers who achieved great dis-tinction in their chosen fields and in their respective countries. After a dis-tinguished career in law, civil admin-istration, and industrial management, Geoffrey Vickers made an exceptional contribution to academic debate with regard to ethics, epistemology, and governance –the art of maintaining stable relationships over time. One of the most eminent scholars of political economics in the Western world and a gifted teacher, Adolph Lowe inspired generations of economics students at the New School for Social Research in New York, and has published a number of seminal books on the subject. The friendship between the two was very close, taking shape through a corre-spondence and occasional visits to one side or the other of the Atlantic. It lasted more than forty years.
This volume reflects the extraordi-narily wide-ranging nature of the cor-respondence between Lowe and Vick-ers, and the continuing discussion of what it means to be human at the end of the twentieth century. The letters provide a personal commentary on some of the major events of this century, in-cluding many that were highly contro-versial. The book shows how these two scholars contributed to the develop-ment of the central ideas of the century. They are particularly relevant to pres-ent concerns, dealing as they do with economics and management, social and political sciences, governance and pub-lic policy.
Discussing major national and in-ternational problems from very differ-ent–and sometimes opposite–standpoints, the two men are able, through this extraordinary correspondence, to formulate ideas of great wisdom and foresight with regard to the world that awaits us as the twenty-first century appears on the horizon. Economists, political scientists, and sociologists will find this correspondence stimulating and enlightening.
