On page 242 of this anthology, in an excerpt from Fuller's second book on "Synergetics," Fuller writes,

"The epistemography of synergetics discovers operationally, experientially, and experimentally that the most primitive of the conceptual systems to be divided or isolated from nonunitarily and nonsimultaneously conceptual Scenario Universe most inherently consist of the simplest minimum considerability none of whose components can exist independently of one another."

Passages in Fuller's writings like this, which sound like schizophrenic word-salads, make me wonder why Fuller still has the cult following he does. Although he was capable of writing reasonably clear explanations of his ideas and discoveries, more often than not he managed to sabotage his efforts at communication by cranking out arcane assertions like the one above. How was he able to get books full of such obscure rhetoric commercially published in the first place? At least technical textbooks are usually written in ways that can be assimilated into the existing context of knowledge. Fuller was writing way outside of the conceptual box, and many of his "ideas," if they could be called that, are still essentially homeless.

This anthology doesn't really demonstrate to my satisfaction why we should continue to study Fuller's legacy nearly two decades after his death. The geodesic dome fad has passed; few people these days advocate providing for "100% of humanity" through some conjectural "design science" based on Fuller's ideas, and doing so now sounds hopelessly naive and utopian; and we're just as burdened with having to "make a living" as ever, despite all the propaganda about the "affluence" and "abundance" in our society. (Just look at the proliferation of nonproductive and low-paying "service" jobs in the U.S. economy. For example, refer to Barbara Ehrenreich's book _Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America_.) Fuller's prediction (on page 212) that we'd have "sustainable abundance for all" by 1985 sounds ridiculous now.

The contrasting posthumous reputations of Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright demonstrate how our culture's priorities have changed since Fuller's heyday in the idealistic 1960's. Wright is still considered a living presence in American architecture, mainly because he built innovative structures for wealthy, paying clients. Fuller has fallen into relative obscurity in part because he tried to design cheap, efficient housing for the world's lumpen-people, like the ones in Muslim countries who view America as their enemy. Our choices in architectural heroes reflect the current belief that financially successful people are better than the rest of us. Fuller advocated a social philosophy that is fundamentally at odds with early 21st Century American ideals. I don't see how his thinking can be re-integrated into the current set of allowable social proposals.

During most of his life in the last century, one of the things most often said about Bucky was that he is a man "ahead of his time". Well it was true then and it is much more true today. Because since he left us (sort of) the world has been steadily regressing, until now we are involved in war without end. Fuller was famous for many things, synergetics, Dymaxion car and house, really famous for geodesic domes. But his enduring message, and what the world needs desperately to hear now, is the idea of "making the world work for 100% of humanity". By which he meant using the worlds resources to serve the basic needs of everyone on the planet. He taught us that there are no shortages, that there is enough to go around, and all we need to do this is the will to do it. In the world game he would explain how much it would cost for everyone to have enough- food, shelter, clean water, health care- even eliminate land mines and soil erosion and deforestation. He calculated the total cost for all this and more as about 30% of the world's military expenditures.
Bucky believes we are all world citizens, all fellow pasengers on spaceship earth. And that we need to learn to be together, to be just one people, and stop having wars and wasting the earths riches on weapons.
Utopian? of course it's utopian. It is also perfectly sensible and reasonable and intelligent . And human. It is, it must be, the way we should be, the world we should make, for all of us.
This beautiful book is full of his teachings and the enthusiastic tributes of his friends and students. Just buy it.
And stop the bombing!

Anyone who makes Bucky Fuller's wisdom more available to the humankind for which he cared so deeply provides an enormous service. This anthology does that with gleanings of Fuller's writings as well as anecdotes from those whose life he touched. Unfortunately, it does little to explain in easily understood language what Bucky learned and attempted to teach and demonstrate.

The personal stories sandwiched in between excerpts from Bucky's writings do begin to provide insight into Bucky being what he claimed was most important about him - that he was an average healthy human. Throughout his life and work, he proved that the "little individual" can make an enormous difference. Unfortunately, that message often becomes lost in discussions of inventions, science, mathematics and engineering.

Bucky was and is, more than anything, a modern mystic. I feel that the most important writing contained in this book supports this. In her article, Barbara Marx Hubbard recounts that shortly prior to his passing he told her the truth of his famous 1927 mystic experience in which he decided to devote himself to the welfare of all humankind rather than commit suicide.

She writes that he told her that the voice that spoke to him actually said, "Bucky, you are to be a first mini-Christ on Earth. What you attest to is true." And that is how I feel Bucky lived during the next fifty-six years of his life. There is much to learn from the events of those fifty-six years.

I have been studying them and applying them to my life for nearly twenty years, and I find that Bucky did speak and live the truth. His wisdom helped me to write "Buckminster Fuller's Universe" and to recently create (a web site) in order to support others in going beyond his geodesic dome and other inventions and gaining access to Fuller's mystic wisdom.

This book is yet another artifact to help us all in our journey. Do not let Bucky's convoluted language dissuade your pursuit of his wisdom. Use this book and any others you may discover to help claim the legacy that he left us all.

In murky Tortuga, which our heroes are not familiar with, people are getting murdered left and right. From sea battles to swordplay, this book has everything you would think pirates would do. The boy does things that seem realistic for his age (which is the same as mine). He doesn't load cannons or slay pirates himself, but he is a spy and assistant surgeon. There's constant action and surprises, twists and turns and deadly encounters.
I finished it in one sitting.
The same authors wrote the Wishbone Mystery series. In those books, they leapt from one plot to another too quickly, and the mysteries set in the present weren't very exciting. They write better with one story to tell, and The Guns of Tortuga's hero can fight, battle and spy because he has to do these things to survive.

Fuller argues that Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific Revolutions*, the ostensibly radical study of paradigm shifts in science, is a profoundly reactionary work: by interpreting historical disputes in terms of parties' commitments to incommensurable paradigms, Kuhn has unleashed a pernicious ahistorical relativism that closes off public debate about the moral, political, and cultural implications of contemporary science. Fuller, a sociologist, attributes Kuhn's conservatism to an over sensitivity to the social consequences of challenging received opinions and to cold war concerns about scientists' morale and about the public perception of science.

Fuller portrays Kuhn as a dangerous exemplar of the dark side of Western culture. Whereas, on his estimation, Socrates, Jesus, and Kuhn's rival Ernest Mach represent a salutary risk-seeking critical libertarianism, Plato, the Catholic Church, and Kuhn represent a tragic risk-adverse authoritarianism. Fuller's broader agenda is to combat the second tradition from the standpoint of the first. This makes for an exciting polemic and, to his credit, Fuller supports his partisan rhetoric with extensive documentation. Ultimately, however, Fuller is not simply a critic of Kuhn but is his implacable enemy. A destructive urge dominates, which leads Fuller to put forward numerous implausible analyses and causes him to overlook opportunities to engage in constructive reasoned dialogue with his interlocutor.

I read over the other reviews before writing mine, and one thing is clear for sure -- a lot of people's bubbles have been burst! However, the thing that struck me the most about Fuller's book is the simple fact that he is really the first person to come up with a comprehensive account of why Kuhn became such a big deal. Before this book, there was simply no explanation whatsoever, aside from some vacuous remarks about the stylistic qualities of the book. I always find this kind of judgment rich, especially when it comes from people who had no clear vision of science before reading Kuhn. To the "Kuhn-heads" out there, I say this: If you find Fuller's iconoclasm offensive, ask yourself whether you had any REALLY good reason to accept Kuhn in the first place. Weren't you just swept along on a wave, a bandwagon effect? Once you read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions critically, as Fuller has, you see that Kuhn's model just falls apart in your hands. It's bad history, philosophy, and sociology of science -- but it's probably better than what Kuhn's admirers originally had! If someone has a better account of why Kuhn's book had so much influence, then the gauntlet has been thrown down!

Judged by the Reader from Nashville's idea of what goes on in academic culture and research grants, I wouldn't trust his reading of Fuller. In the first place, Fuller's book is very much in the "old style" of academic work -- including not only archival material, conceptual overviews of various fields, but even some moralizing. That is to say, Fuller's book harkens back to a period BEFORE the research grant culture arose. Nowadays, the grant culture supports loads of bite-sized articles with executive summaries and crisply presented reference lists. Whatever other business Fuller might be up to in this book, it is certainly not that! Also, it's nothing like a contemporary doctoral dissertation, since the dissertation director would have nipped in the bud the vast scope that Fuller's book has.

As an academic author, I have no problem with Fuller's method, especially because of the enormous -- and often enormously mindless -- significance accorded to Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. You can't uproot such an entrenched book without assaulting it from all sides, ranging from the immediate Harvard environment to the larger themes in Western culture with which Kuhn's book has unwittingly resonated. Anything less, it seems to me, would simply not be taken seriously by the people who ultimately have the power to dethrone it -- which, for better for worse, are academics and those who take us seriously.