John Shuttleworth, Founder of Mother Earth News, Interview Part II

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PLOWBOY: Your theory is beautiful ... but can you prove that it works?

SHUTTLEWORTH: I don't have to. You already did that when you ticked off a couple of the reasons why you think I, in your words, "always seem to keep one jump ahead of everyone else."

However — since I've told you that I'm only "a one-eyed man in the land of the blind" when it comes to peering into the future — I welcome the chance to verify my theory. Because I can best do so by introducing you to the work of a most remarkable man. A man who had 20/20 foresight in both eyes. A prophet who looked ahead back in 1950 by first taking a sweeping view of what had gone before and then, believe it or not, gently but quite accurately predicted today's energy shortages, social unrest, political trends ... everything! And who projected — I believe with a fair degree of certainty — what life will be like in the year 2000 ... and 2025 ... and 2050.

That man was Walter Prescott Webb, who was — from 1933 until his accidental death in 1963 — professor of history at the University of Texas. Unlike most historians, however, Walter Prescott Webb didn't waste the world's time by concentrating on the study of some specialized, nationalistic fragment of the past. Instead, he took that giant step out into space that I recommended a little while ago and then, from his vantage point, he watched a very important chunk of history unfold over the whole surface of the planet.

No other historian had ever done this at the time, of course, and — as far as I know — none have done so since. Which means that Webb discovered far more important forces in action — and then traced their movements through time and space — than anyone else in his field. Luckily for all of us, he then refined his vision so well that he was able to observe the ripple effects of those forces right down to the equivalent of that fifth race at Belmont. He was also intelligent enough to realize that the course of major vectors set into motion hundreds of years ago could be predicted with accuracy far into the future and he learned to anticipate the probable results of those trajectories so precisely that, for all practical purposes, he could dang near call that Belmont race for you 50 years before it was run.

PLOWBOY: You exaggerate, I'm sure.

SHUTTLEWORTH: I do exaggerate. But only a little. Walter Prescott Webb was an amazing and an awe-inspiring man. And as far as I'm concerned, the book in which he presented his encompassing view of history and in which he predicted so much that has al ready happened and so much that will — I'm sure — take place, is absolutely "must" reading.

PLOWBOY: Tell me about that book.

SHUTTLEWORTH: It's called The Great Frontier, it was originally copyrighted in 1951 and 1952, and I think it still stands — now, 25 years after it was written — as the operating manual for Spaceship Earth that, collectively, we're just beginning to realize we need.

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