The Future of Humanity
by Michio Kaku
Published by Allen Lane www.greenpenguin.co.uk

“The Future of Humanity’ is very much a ‘never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width’ kind of read. I have whole books covering subjects to which Kaku devotes a page or two. He races through the subject matter like a skimmed stone, splashing briefly across topic after topic without any danger of plumbing their depts. On the other hand there are a LOT of topics.

Everything from Artificial Intelligence to bioengineering, starships and transhumanism is thrown into the mix here. There’s nothing new, some that’s quite old (Bussard Ramscoops from the ‘60’s) and you can find more details on everything scattered online. Still, Kaku’s artless optimism reminds me of old Clarke and Asimov popular science books. It’s the sort of thing I would have devoured in my early teens and I think that might be an excellent potential audience. Imagine the title reads ‘A Beginner’s Guide to the Future of Humanity’ and you’ll get exactly what you expect.