How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Travellers Guide to Changing the World

LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION WRITING

"Rob Hopkins is one of the world’s great optimists. He really believes that things can get better, and, when he’s around, they usually do. This book will lift your spirits and give you hope." —Brian Eno, musician, producer and artist

"No one makes environmental optimism more credible or compelling than Rob Hopkins. Read this and don’t weep." —Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, chef and campaigner

There are an infinite number of possible futures that lie ahead of us—like threads stretching out into the distance. Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the international Transition Network movement, invites us to travel to future worlds we would actually want to live in.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted every aspect of daily life, climate activist and Transition Network cofounder Rob Hopkins responded the way a lot of people did: by starting a podcast. But it wasn’t any ordinary podcast. In each episode, Hopkins and his guests would “time travel” together to the year 2030—walking down imagined future streets, talking with imagined future neighbours, visiting imagined future local businesses. While Hopkins’s guests came from all walks of life—economists, politicians, bakers, comedians, novelists and more—they all shared a willingness to suspend their worries about the future long enough to mentally inhabit and then describe a world they were thrilled to be a part of.

What Hopkins discovered was no less profound: this simple exercise of visiting a positive future forced him to rethink the work he’d been doing as a climate activist for decades.

How to Fall in Love with the Future is the result of that radical disruption—and Hopkins’s deep dive into the people and movements throughout history who have used visions of the future to inspire positive change on a large and dramatic scale. From the life and writings of musician Sun Ra and the history of Black utopian movements to the latest neuroscience on what goes on in our minds—and hearts—when we “time travel,” Hopkins brings essential new thinking to anyone overwhelmed with dread and anxiety for the future. He asks us to consider: what would the world look like if we all got to work imagining—and then building—a world we were deeply in love with?

“Rob Hopkins puts imagination back at the heart of future-dreaming, offering us an irresistible invitation to dream bigger and then make those dreams a reality.”— Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics

Rob Hopkins is the cofounder of Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes. He is the author of several books, including The Transition Handbook and, most recently, From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want. An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins has spoken at TED Global and several TEDx events, and he appeared in the French film phenomenon Demain. He holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth, as well as 2 honoris causas. Hopkins is a director of Totnes Community Development Society, and he runs ‘Imagination Catalyst’ trainings for a wide range of organisations, including Balenciaga and Patagonia. He hosted the podcast From What If to What Next and has collaborated with musician Mr Kit on a music project called Field Recordings from the Future, due out in 2025. In November 2022, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Liège, Belgium, by the mayor of the city. His website is robhopkins.net.