2025: Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology by Joseph F. Coates, John B. Mahaffie, Andy Hines.  Oak Hill, 1996.

A very positive view of the future when all current laboratory technologies radically change our world and lives.

200x The State of the Future by Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon.  Millennium Project. 

An exhaustive compendium of global challenges, scenarios and solutions from an international panel of futurists.  Published annually.

Vital Signs 200x : The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future by Michael Renner, christo Flavin, Lester R. Brown, Christopher Flavin. W.W. Norton.*

An excellent compendium of global trends and the statistical time series to back them up.  Published annually.

The Coming of Post-Industrial Society by Daniel Bell.  Basic Books, 1976.

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. Random House, 1970.

The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. Bantam Books, 1980.

This trio of classics announced the coming of information society, a transformation that still is running its course throughout society.

The Limits to Growth by Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows et. al.  Pan MacMillan, 1974.

Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows et. al.  Chelsea Green, 1992.

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Global Update by Dennis Meadows et. al. Chelsea Green, 2004.

Another classic trio of books, beginning with the 1972 blockbuster and its 20- and 30-year updates—all point to an overshoot of world carrying capacity and a consequent collapse of world systems as population, resource use and pollution overwhelm the planet’s ability to cope.

The Macmillan Atlas of the Future edited by Ian Pearson.  Macmillan Reference. 1998.

Full-color maps and graphics provide a clear, vivid, and authoritative overview of where we are headed in the next millennium.

TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow edited by Andrew Zolli.  Que, 2002.

Another beautifully illustrated review of our new technological futures.

The Fourth Turning:  An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe. Broadway Books, 1997.

Strauss and Howe predict that America is roughly a decade away from its next era of crisis and change.

Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence by Peter Schwartz.  Gotham/Penguin, 2003.

Chair of the Global Business Network views surprises in the next 25 years as the norm, but many can be anticipated: a world of older and healthier people, return of the Long Boom, a truly new world order with the US as "rogue superpower," a wide range of disorder, major sci/tech breakthroughs, and global climate change. Clearly written and sensible.

It's Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology, and Business by Christopher Meyer and Stan Davis. Crown Publishing Group, 2003.

This book explores the implications of the science of molecular evolution as it races out of the laboratory and into the business world. The authors illustrate how gene mapping and molecular engineering are overtaking and reshaping the Information Age, making the business world unpredictable, volatile, and continually adaptive—in a word, alive.

The Age Of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil. Viking, 1999.

The difference between humans and machines is increasingly blurring. Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the Kurzweil Reading Machine and the Kurzweil synthesizer, argues that by 2030 people will be able to download their brains into a computer. The marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence will fundamentally alter—and improve—the way we live, he believes.