You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future - Hardcover

This ought to be a profoundly wrong-headed book, judging one man's ideas against the entire recent history of Spaceship Earth. But You Belong to the Universe says more about Fuller and his future in a few pages than some whole biographies. (Simon Ings, New Scientist)

illuminating book (Howard Segal, Times Higher Education)

Readers coming for an illuminating biography of one of technology's most colourful characters won't be disappointed. What they'll get as well though is a primer in a way of thinking about innovation that warrants a revival. (Engineering & Technology Magazine)

Keats's timely book challenges each of us to become comprehensive anticipatory design scientists, providing the necessary tools for continuing Fuller's legacy of improving the world (Building Construction Design)

Reviews from US edition A wonderfully written and highly necessary book about one of the 20th century's most enigmatic outliers. (Douglas Coupland, author and artist)

Brilliantly challenging Buckminster Fuller's self-mythologizing by putting Fuller's life and ideas in their historical context, Jonathon Keats is all the more able to identify the ways of thinking that were truly original in Fuller's own time, and the concepts that can address today's environmental and technological dilemmas. Keats's sympathetic but firm critique of Fuller, and his own suggestions for the human future, make this book a must for Fuller enthusiasts and skeptics alike ― in fact, for everyone aspiring to think outside the dome. (Edward Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back and Our Own Devices)

Jonathon Keats audaciously tackles the grandiose Buckminster Fuller, debunking Fuller's legend while extending his inventive thinking for our present day. Sometimes it takes a real visionary to know one. (Bruce Sterling, author of Tomorrow Now and Holy Fire)

I loved reading Jonathon Keats's fascinating book on one of my favorite thinkers and optimists, Buckminster Fuller. Keats illuminates how Fuller's daring mind predicted the Internet, MOOCs, Netflix, and much more. Even if some of his ideas didn't work out, it's so refreshing to inhabit Fuller's insatiably curious mind that truly believed we could design ourselves into a better future. (Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards, creator of the show "The Future Starts Here")

R. Buckminster Fuller was born in privilege, educated by experience and his own intuition, and created his own myth. Along the way he enriched human existence with inventions such as the geodesic dome and revolutionary concepts about peace and our place in the environment. Jonathon Keats has done a superb job of distinguishing fact from legend and refocusing our attention on Fuller's thoughts and perceptions. The work of a remarkable man has yielded a remarkable book. (Michael Hiltzik, author of Big Science)

Keats' excellent book on Buckminster Fuller recalls a remarkable life in engineering and beyond, an underestimated and underappreciated life. Fuller's tale reminds us that the future is best predicted by those who invent it. (Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist)

Jonathon Keats is a writer, artist and experimental philosopher. He is recently the author of the story collection The Book of the Unknown (Random House), winner of the American Library Association's 2010 Sophie Brody Medal, as well as Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology (2010) and Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age (2013), both published by OUP.