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

In this uneven exercise in futurology, Hine ( Populuxe ) treads familiar ground in discussing overpopulation, the end of the Cold War, the need to integrate technology with concern for human life and the environment, and so forth. He trenchantly examines Americans' denial of the importance of community and eloquently ponders the depersonalization and isolation wrought by the emerging electronic environments of our information-laden society. A staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer , Hine also takes an unflinching look at the dawn of robotic manufacture and the prospect of ``a full-unemployment society.'' His shrewd observations on city planning, architecture, space travel and biological engineering are rewarding. Regrettably, much of this cautiously optimistic report is bland, obvious or equivocal (``This is only a possibility . . . it is equally likely that . . . '') and fails in its goal of conveying ``a useful sense of the future.'' (Aug.)