6 February, 2008

This book made me

One of my favourite childhood books, which still has pride of place on my shelves, has qualified as a virtual museum exhibit: the entire contents have been scanned and are readable online.

As BoingBoing says, the Usborne Book Of The Future, first published in 1979, was a beautifully optimistic look at the future (not entirely optimistic – it didn't foresee the end of the Cold War) which strongly influenced my views on technology (medical, environmental, power-generation, etc.) and many aspects of my overall character, such as my preference for hard-tech sci-fi. Some of the illustrations are far-fetched nowadays, but it's interesting to see how many projections have been achieved, if in a less grandiose manner, and how many are still valid technical aspirations.