Facing Tomorrow: What the Future Has Been, What the Future Can Be.

Thomas Hine, a Philadelphia journalist, says he began writing this book out of a concern that "the future had become, at best, a nostalgia item, something we remember with affection and condescension but don't take seriously. That's a dangerous situation because a denial of the future starves

Hine read much and pondered much, and the result is a collection of seven meditations on what's happening in today's society and what it may mean for the future. He takes the reader on a meandering quest for understanding, exploring many avenues, from utopian writers and modern technology to narcotics and homelessness.

Hine struggles to discover the ultimate meaning of it all and what will happen in the future but fails to reach very definite conclusions. He winds up feeling he can "muster only one and a half cheers for tomorrow."

Facing Tomorrow is thoughtful, smoothly written, and almost painfully sincere, but it will likely disappoint many readers because it fails to turn up much that is new and exciting and because its conclusions lack bite. The author seems, at times, to be a well-meaning but naive clergyman wandering around a battlefield trying to put flowers in the muzzles of the guns.

The book should appeal mainly to people who like leisurely essays on serious topics. Its usefulness as a reference tool is weakened by its loose organization and lack of notes and subtitles, but it does have an index and a list of sources.