Rethinking the Future: The Correspondence Between Geoffrey Vickers and Adolph Lowe

Rethinking the Future is the story of a relationship between two highly origi-nal thinkers who achieved great dis-tinction in their chosen fields and in their respective countries. After a dis-tinguished career in law, civil admin-istration, and industrial management, Geoffrey Vickers made an exceptional contribution to academic debate with regard to ethics, epistemology, and "governance"--the art of maintaining stable relationships over time. One of the most eminent scholars of political economics in the Western world and a gifted teacher, Adolph Lowe inspired generations of economics students at the New School for Social Research in New York, and has published a number of seminal books on the subject. The friendship between the two was very close, taking shape through a corre-spondence and occasional visits to one side or the other of the Atlantic. It lasted more than forty years.

This volume reflects the extraordi-narily wide-ranging nature of the cor-respondence between Lowe and Vick-ers, and the continuing discussion of what it means to be human at the end of the twentieth century. The letters provide a personal commentary on some of the major events of this century, in-cluding many that were highly contro-versial. The book shows how these two scholars contributed to the develop-ment of the central ideas of the century. They are particularly relevant to pres-ent concerns, dealing as they do with economics and management, social and political sciences, governance and pub-lic policy.

Discussing major national and in-ternational problems from very differ-ent--and sometimes opposite--standpoints, the two men are able, through this extraordinary correspondence, to formulate ideas of great wisdom and foresight with regard to the world that awaits us as the twenty-first century appears on the horizon. Economists, political scientists, and sociologists will find this correspondence stimulating and enlightening.