Editorial Review:
Dr. James Canton, a renown futurist, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, and Fortune 1000 advisor, charts a course to steer you through the volatile changes that lie 5, 10, and 20 years ahead. The Extreme Future is this generation’s Future Shock, Alvin Toffler’s classic book on what’s next and how to prepare for tomorrow.
Get ready for fast, radical, and complex change. Get ready for the Extreme Future. Our world is constantly buffeted by new and dramatic changes that we can’t fully grasp. No one is fully prepared for the challenges, crises, and risks that lie ahead. The Extreme Future is a blueprint for what’s next and how to navigate these changes. Get ready for fast, radical and complex change. Get ready for the Extreme Future. Our world is constantly buffeted by new and dramatic changes that we can’t fully grasp. No one is fully prepared for the challenges, crises and risks that lie ahead. The Extreme Future is a blueprint for what’s next and how to navigate these changes. An advisor to three White House’s spanning more than 30 years, Dr. Canton challenges us that with the right information about future trends it is possible to identify probable outcomes. It is possible, with the right information to navigate the Extreme Future. The book covers the following major trends:
* How climate change and energy trends will reshape the planet
* How shifting population trends will transform the workforce
* How radical innovation trends will competitively drive business
* How astounding medicine trends will enhance people’s life
* How dangerous terrorism trends will threaten the individual.
* How the rise of China will bring on a new global power struggle
The answers to these questions are not only available, but contained within these pages. The Extreme Future is the forecasting handbook for the twenty-first century.
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Well organized  2008-05-24
I purchased this book for a college class. According to the syllabus, I will be reading it in about two weeks, so I cannot tell you if the material is valuable or not. However, after skimming through it, it appears to be well organized.
What Do You Want The Future To Be? 2008-04-03
DAVID HOULE'S "THE SHIFT AGE" OPENS OUR EYES TO OUR OWN INCRERDIBLE TIME OF TRANSFORMATION.
IN A TIME WHEN THE SPEED OF PROGRESS CAN RENDER RECENT INNOVATIONS OBSOLETE BEFORE OUR MORNING COFFE COOLS, OUR ABILITY TO INFLUECE THE DESTINY OF MANKIND AND PLANET EARTH WILL REQUIRE A STEADY HAND. HOULE'S ABILITY TO CONNECT THE DOTS AS THEY SPEED US INTO THE FUTURE PROVIDES US WITH A MACRO VIEW OF HOW OUR WORLD WILL BE SHAPED BY SIX CRITICAL FACTORS.
TECHNOLOGY
ENERGY & GLOBAL WARMING
TRANSPORTATION
DISINTERMEDIATION
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
MEDIA
THE ONLY CHALLENGE WITH "THE SHIFT AGE" IS SOME REDUNDANCIES IN THE USE OF COLUMNS WRITTEN BY HOULE TO DEVELOP FORWWARD MOVING COMNCEPTS. OTHERWISE, THIS IS A GREAT READ. HOWEVER, BECAUSE OF THE REDUNDANCIES, I GAVE THIS BOOK 4 0F 5 STARS.
IN ALL, THIS IS A VERY INSIGHTFUL AND FORESIGHTFUL BOOK REGARDING THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY AND THE PLANET WE LIVE ON.
A Powerful and Thought Provoking Glimpse Into Tomorrow!  2008-02-05
I heard about this book during a presentation by Howard Rheingold at a Rotary Honolulu luncheon. I jotted the name of the book down and bought a copy.
This book has given me a broadened perspective on where our world is today in regards to business, technology, medicine, security, terrorism, population, immigration, the environment, energy, and even what it may mean to be human during the remainder of this century and beyond.
The book is divided into 12 chapters. The first chapter sets the premise: The future can be extreme. The future can be bright, or it can be dark. The concept of "Future-Readiness" is introduced, and how the degree of awareness and readyness can change the probable outcome of the future. Dr. Canton also describes a process of looking at the future to determine the extremes, the causes of the extremes, and thus the choices that can be made today to shape the future.
The next eight chapters address various factors which we are living with today which will have a bearing on how the future develops. These topics include: Energy, Prosperity/Poverty, Human Capital, Medicine, Environment, Globalization, Security, and Advanced Science.
The last three chapters serve to pull together the information in the first nine chapters to "plug in the crystal ball" and examine how the confluence of factors will impact the future of the individual, and the global future with an emphasis on China and the U.S.
Granted, there are some pretty wild and imaginative "predictions" of specific inventions, such as teleportation of matter, but the public thought Leonardo DaVinci crazed when he suggested that people could fly with the aid of machines.
For me, the chapter with the most impact was the last chapter: The Future of America and Democracy. This chapter is a "call to service" for America, and the world. It very powerfully urges that we the people, government and business, consider taking certain actions to address the challenges that face our communities, our nation, our world, and humanity.
This was both a thoroughly enlightening and entertaining read. Two years after publication, this book is prescient and timely reading for anyone who wonders "Where are we going?", "How are we going to get there?", "What could go wrong?", but most importantly "What can we do?".
Why this book is extremely discounted  2007-11-02
70 pages are missing from this version on sale. My review is the only place that mentions this Key fact.
Try the paperback version or even another vendor.
Too much preening and raw speculation  2007-10-09
The book contains a lot of preening; the author seems to think it is important to remind us (anecdotally) how many huge companies and heads-of-state he's interacted with. Many of his predictions range from poorly explored (he talks about a hydrogen fuel economy without addressing the fact that hydrogen is just a transport--not a readily available source of energy) to the absurd (predictions that teleportation will be available within decades, given the fact of photonic teleportation which doesn't even slightly approach the complexity of disintegrating, transporting and reintegrating an object!) There's also a lot of political advocacy here; I'd have simply preferred an analysis of technological and cultural trends along with research to back it up.
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