Essential guidance for the future by one of today's most respected and provocative social thinkers. Hope and the Future addresses what being optimistic about the future ultimately depends on. It describes how we face a growing number of human challenges that require that we think, act, and relate in new ways-often fundamentally new ways. And it looks at how effectively addressing those challenges will require not just fresh ideas, but a critical "growing up" as a species-a new Cultural Maturity. This first in a new three book series by psychiatrist and futurist Charles M. Johnston MD introduces the concept of Cultural Maturity and examines how the changes it describes will be necessary to a future that is at all healthy-and perhaps even survivable. It also looks at ways in which Cultural Maturity's changes are already happening, and how, when we are ready for them, needed changes can seem surprisingly straightforward; indeed, like common sense. Hope and the Future is an exploration of the "new common sense" on which our future depends.