Ideas and Integrities

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartographer, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. For more than five decades, he set forth his comprehensive perspective on the world's problems in numerous essays, which offer an illuminating insight into the intellectual universe of this "renaissance man." These texts remain surprisingly topical even today, decades after their initial publication.

While Fuller wrote the works in the 1960's and 1970's, they could not be more timely: like desperately needed time-capsules of wisdom for the critical moment he foresaw, and in which we find ourselves. Long out of print, they are now being published again, together with commentary by Jaime Snyder, the grandson of Buckminster Fuller. Designed for a new generation of readers, Snyder prepared these editions with supplementary material providing background on the texts, factual updates, and interpretation of his visionary ideas.

A biography of Buckminster Fuller's "thought development," Ideas and Integrities presents an intimate self-portrait of the experiences and discoveries behind his groundbreaking ideas and inventions. Through in-depth essays like "Total Thinking," "Design for Survival - Plus," and "The Comprehensive Man," spanning the period from his earliest writings to the invention of the geodesic dome and his explosion onto the world stage, he delivers a powerful manifesto for the comprehensive design revolution he had championed: "To make man a success on earth.... we must design our way to positive effectiveness."

Buckminster Fuller's prophetic 1962 book Education Automation brilliantly anticipated the need to rethink learning in light of a dawning revolution in informational technology - "upcoming major world industry." Along with other essays on education, including "Breaking the Shell of Permitted Ignorance," "Children: the True Scientists" and "Mistake Mystique," this volume presents a powerful approach for preparing ourselves to face epochal changes on spaceship earth: "whether we are going to make it or not... is really up to each one of us; it is not something we can delegate to the politicians - what kind of world are you really going to have?"