Critical Path.

Signed by both authors. First edition, first printing, signed by Kuromiya and inscribed by Fuller, 'To: Barb, Buckminster Fuller, 4/10.81'.

Critical Path, Fuller's magnum opus, weaves world history, environmentalism, and political economy into a 'masterful summing up of an entire lifetime's thought and concern', his 'most significant, accessible, and urgent work' (blurb).

Fuller 'bravely insists on utopia in this comprehensive statement of his philosophy. Instead of envisioning the Malthusian tragedy of resource exhaustion posed by the Club of Rome and others, Mr. Fuller suggests that ''technologically we now have four billion billionaires on board Spaceship Earth.'' All of us are kept ignorant of our good fortune by political, economic and religious systems that depend for their popularity on the false premise that we can do no more than accommodate ourselves to material limits. If only we would stop fighting over crumbs, according to Mr. Fuller, and take heed of the ''design science revolution,'' which has already brought unprecedented prosperity to much of the world, the epoch of competition will finally give way to one of co-operation, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation' (New York Times review, April 19th, 1981).

First edition, first printing; 8vo; illustrations within the text; original burgundy cloth, titles and decorative design to spine gilt, pictorial endpapers, a few light spots to the cloth, an excellent copy in the dust jacket with some fading of the spine panel; 471pp.