Histories of the Future

“Jonathon’s book, Histories of the Future, is a brilliant and wonderful tour of the history of the forecasting profession. Jonathon introduces us to Babson, Fisher, Turing and many others as he illustrates the progression from oracles to arti­ficial intelligence. I predict it will be a seminal, must-read book for all forecasting professionals.”

“Histories of the Future is an insightful, clever book worth reading. It is a set of stories which together provide a narrative about the origins of business forecasting and how it has become what it is today. It is not a ‘how to’ guide. Instead Jonathon Karelse, an enlightened practitioner, provides an exciting account about the people and times that gave rise to the major ideas and the key milestones in business forecasting. The interest to read the book comes right away by looking at its table of contents with its clever headings, including ‘The Great Crash: The Death and the Birth of Business Forecast­ing’ and ‘Intelligence, Real and Artificial: AI and ML.’ There is a lot to learn and enjoy while reading this book.”.

“A unique and fascinating tour of the history leading to modern-day business forecasting. Karelse shows how a com­bination of varied (and often misguided) approaches laid the foundation upon which we forecast today.”

“An engrossing account of a fascinating and neglected history that will provide important insights to anyone involved in business forecasting today.”

“By placing forecasting tools, techniques, and practices into their historical context Jonathon not only provides for an interesting read, he brings us to a deeper and more complete understanding of the forecasting discipline. It helps us to better understand the true value of underestimated concepts like the Delphi Method and CPFR on the one hand and better deal with the inflated expectations of AI and ML at the other end of the spectrum.”