{"product_id":"looking-forward-jamie-l-pietruska-9780226475004","title":"Looking Forward: Prediction and Uncertainty in Modern America","description":"In the decades after the Civil War, the world experienced monumental changes in industry, trade, and governance. As Americans faced this uncertain future, public debate sprang up over the accuracy and value of predictions, asking whether it was possible to look into the future with any degree of certainty. In \u003ci\u003eLooking Forward\u003c\/i\u003e, Jamie L. Pietruska uncovers a culture of prediction in the modern era, where forecasts became commonplace as crop forecasters, \"weather prophets,\" business forecasters, utopian novelists, and fortune-tellers produced and sold their visions of the future. Private and government forecasters competed for authority--as well as for an audience--and a single prediction could make or break a forecaster's reputation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Pietruska argues that this late nineteenth-century quest for future certainty had an especially ironic consequence: it led Americans to accept uncertainty as an inescapable part of both forecasting and twentieth-century economic and cultural life. Drawing together histories of science, technology, capitalism, environment, and culture, \u003ci\u003eLooking Forward\u003c\/i\u003e explores how forecasts functioned as new forms of knowledge and risk management tools that sometimes mitigated, but at other times exacerbated, the very uncertainties they were designed to conquer. Ultimately Pietruska shows how Americans came to understand the future itself as predictable, yet still uncertain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jamie L. Pietruska\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 022647500X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226475004\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/08\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.10d","brand":"Jamie L. Pietruska","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46670488830207,"sku":"9780226475004","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_9451d174-a942-4b09-8c2e-62f1c2d33e3e.jpg?v=1741316928","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/looking-forward-jamie-l-pietruska-9780226475004","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}