Speculation, by Gayle Rogers (introduction)

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ROGERS

“Like the finest lens makers, Gayle Rogers has reflected, refracted, magnified, and generally brought into focus two millennia of thought and culture, all around the perfectly tempered curvature of a single term. Speculation, I suspect, will stand on the ridge of contemporary critical inquiry like a speculum, a watchtower for years to come.” —TOM McCARTHY, AUTHOR OF SATIN ISLAND: A NOVEL

—G. ELLIOTT MORRIS, DATA JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

“Speculation is at once an erudite study of the long history of a single term and a timely, entertaining read about the way words can reshape the relationship between ideas.” —SOPHIA ROSENFELD, AUTHOR OF COMMON SENSE: A POLITICAL HISTORY

“Speculation begins as a definition but soon becomes a sweeping cultural history. As the story develops, this apparently simple term expands to take in all sorts of mixed feelings about the practical and the ideal, the present and the future, the tangible and the intangible. The human tendency to look ahead is shown to be the source of our highest flights of fancy and our most devious schemes. Right now, when the uncertainty of the future sharpens our desire to imagine it, this account of the ins and outs, the highs and lows of speculation is especially welcome.”

SPECULATION

“Thanks to the technological revolution, humans have a mass of tools that can aid us in speculating about the future. Yet we continue to make spectacularly bad predictions about events that are only a few days or weeks away. In retelling the history, psychology, and neurological mysticism of speculation, Rogers offers an enticing remedy to many of today’s challenges in a remarkably engaging read. Speculation will change the way you think.”

a t l u i o c e n p S

—MICHAEL NORTH, AUTHOR OF WHAT IS THE PRESENT?

—BARUCH FISCHHOFF, HOWARD HEINZ UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR IN THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS AND STRATEGY AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING AND PUBLIC POLICY, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Gayle Rogers is professor and chair of English at the University of Pittsburgh. He

A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI

“Speculation takes readers on a fascinating tour across time, disciplines, genres, cultures, languages, and domains. Rogers shows how people have struggled to bound and describe uncertainties in themselves and their world, sometimes declaring victory over themselves and others, sometimes agonizing or reveling in defeat.”

A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI

is the author of Incomparable Empires: Modernism and the Translation of Spanish and American Literature (Columbia, 2016) and Modernism and the New Spain: Britain, Cosmopolitan Europe, and Literary History (2012). Cover design: Milenda Nan Ok Lee  Cover image: Aliaksandr Mazurkevich © Alamy

CO L UMB IA U N IV ER SITY PR ESS | NEW YORK cup.columbia.edu

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

COLUMBIA

GAYLE ROGERS


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