The history of the future
Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century by Paul Milo is a very cool book. It's funny in a lot of places, and thought provoking in others. My favorite funny prediction is one from the 1950's that nuclear bombs would be used for things like blasting tunnels or demolishing buildings. These weren't science fiction writers doing the speculating, either. The predictions in this book comes from respected (at the time) think tanks, futurists, and scientists of all stripes. Fascinating stuff. The last chapter talks about predictions that were right, like HG Wells's vision of an Internet-like worldwide network. Definitely worth reading.