Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller

Nevala-Lee (Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction) claims that Buckminster Fuller, considered to be a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci and one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, has never been the subject of such a comprehensive biography. Described as an unconventional thinker before his time, Fuller was the architectural designer and futurist best known for popularizing the geodesic dome architectural style in the United States. Disney’s design team utilized the dome as the central element of its famous EPCOT Center. Fuller believed that technology could lift entire nations out of poverty. Silicon Valley leaders, including Steve Jobs, admired his counter-cultural, philosophical thinking and believed Fuller provided a model of what was possible. Fuller’s importance was only partially understood during his lifetime, however, and he was arguably a key prototype for the Ivy-League-dropout start-up founder, as Nevala-Lee argues in this meticulously researched biography, with more than 450 notes and an extensive bibliography.