Everyone is already painfully aware of our predicament - ecological extinctions, dwindling fossil fuel reserves and economic chaos. The solutions are less obvious, despite the many opportunities that surround us. We have never had more access to resources, knowledge and technology but this is not the problem. What we lack most is creative thinking, fuelled by collective optimism. In a pragmatic world run by careerist experts this is hardly surprising. As voters and consumers we are trained to choose and complain, but not how to envisage what we really, really want. How can we design a better...

Originally published in 1694, this record of recent voyages made by Sir John Narborough, Abel Tasman, John Wood and Friderich Martens includes Tasman's account of discovering Tasmania and New Zealand in 1642. Equally engaging, Narborough's journal records his voyage to the Straits of Magellan and his interest in the lands and peoples he encountered from 1669 to 1671. Here also are Wood's thoughts on his 1676 attempt to find a north-east passage to the East Indies, along with Martens' observations on Spitsbergen and whaling in northern waters in 1671. The extracts given here, translated where...

Everyone is already painfully aware of our predicament - ecological extinctions, dwindling fossil fuel reserves and economic chaos. The solutions are less obvious, despite the many opportunities that surround us. We have never had more access to resources, knowledge and technology but this is not the problem. What we lack most is creative thinking, fuelled by collective optimism. In a pragmatic world run by careerist experts this is hardly surprising. As voters and consumers we are trained to choose and complain, but not how to envisage what we really, really want. How can we design a better...