Contents

Contents

1 BUCKMINSTER FULLER AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE

2 a warm, intimate biography by Alden Hatch

3 $7.95

4 “Books and articles about Buckminster Fuller are always about his ideas and inventions, never about the intellectually complex, emotionally simple, mystical technocrat who is known to so many passengers on Spaceship Earth as ‘Bucky.’ This book, written by one who has known Bucky in gaiety and sorrow, defeat and triumph for over fifty-eight years, is an attempt to illuminate the very human being that he is…”

5 Alden Hatch

6 BUCKMINSTER

7Illustrated with photographs, many of them published here for the first time

8 Buckminster Fuller has been called a visionary, a prophet, a genius, and a crackpot…he is a scientist, humanist, inventor, poet, and engineer, and this is the first book to capture him in all the myriad aspects of his incredible life. Here is Bucky with faults and virtues: strong emotions, intense loyalties, outrageous egotism, unexpected humility, intellectual sophistication, and childlike naivete. Alden Hatch writes about Bucky with the warmth and intimacy that only a lifelong friend could have for him.

9 All of Buckminster Fuller’s monumental achievements are brought brilliantly into focus by the author, including the geodesic dome, which encloses more space with less material than any other man-made structure; the house on a pole; the Dymaxion car; and the Dymaxion map, which lays out the world without distortion. Alden Hatch provides a wealth of excellent insights into Bucky’s unique world view, revealing the stages that led to his belief in “ephemeralization,” making raw material go far beyond normal expectations; discusses synergy—the effect being greater than the sum of its parts-a concept Bucky strives to use in his designs; and describes how he has solved the energy crisis—he says, “There isn’t any energy crisis. It’s a crisis of ignorance.”

10(continued on back flap)

11Books by Alden Hatch

12General Ike (General Dwight D. Eisenhower) General in Spurs (General George S. Patton) Franklin D. Roosevelt

13American Express

14Red Carpet for Mamie (Mamie Eisenhower) Ambassador Extraordinary (Clare Boothe Luce) The Circus Kings with Henry Ringling North Crown of Glory (Pope Pius XII)

15A Man Called John (Pope John XXIII) Apostle on the Move (Pope Paul VI)

16 Family Histories

17The Wadsworths of the Genesee

18The Mountbattens

19The Byrds of Virginia

20The Lodges of Massachusetts

21Crown Publishers, Inc., New York

22

23 ľ1974 by Alden Hatch

24 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

25 Inquiries should be addressed to Crown Publishers, Inc., 419 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016.

26 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73–91509

27 Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada by General Publishing Company Limited

28 Design: Michael Perpich