Futuribles journal, which was launched in 1975 by Hugues de Jouvenel, has been in existence now for 40 years and the current issue is number 400. Futuribles occupies a special place in the world of so-called generalist magazines, both by its longevity and its continuity of editorship. It is also distinguished by its resolutely forward-looking orientation and the desire to deliver the kind of information and thinking to its readers that are indispensable for understanding the contemporary world and for acting, as a consequence, with maximum lucidity. The aim, to quote the argument of Hugues de Jouvenel, is ultimately to empower ourselves to be architects of a chosen future, not victims of one that we simply undergo.
But always looking forward doesn’t prevent us, from time to time, from taking a glance in the rear-view mirror and, on the occasion of this 400th issue, attempting a brief retrospective assessment. And so Hugues de Jouvenel, the founder and editor of Futuribles, has scanned these 40 years of Futuribles and identified some of the major topics covered in our pages on which we can claim to have been farsighted and even pioneering. These include foresight methods and ethics, development indicators and models, the resources and limits of our ecosystem, and social change. He also points up certain editorial weaknesses, particularly in the field of science and technology, and a number of blind spots with regard to geopolitics. After 40 years of observing and reflecting on the world and how it may develop, readers will, we hope, have acquired the conviction that the future remains, in many ways, open; and that, provided one has the right information and knows how to distinguish the essential from the merely incidental –which is one of Futuribles’s prime objectives– it remains possible to build that future or to modify its course.
