Bibliography

For those interested in digging into the source material, a link to an HTML version of Synergetics 1 and 2 can be found on the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s website, https://www.bfi.org. The direct link is: http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/intro/explicit.html. Downloadable PDF versions of Synergetics occasionally surface on the web, but the links seem to be short-lived.

For a readable introduction to Fuller’s geometry, there is:

  • A Fuller Explanation, The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller, Amy C. Edmondson, hardcover edition published 1987 by Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Design Science Collection, Arthur L. Loeb, Series Editor; paperback edition published 1992 by Van Nostrand Reinhold; Back-In-Action edition published 2007 by EmergentWorld Press.

Hugh Kenner, the literary critic, Joycean scholar, and polymath who wrote one of the first biographies of Fuller, also wrote an excellent book on geodesic math:

  • Geodesic Math and How to Use It, Hugh Kenner, University of California Press Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, ©1976. Second paperback edition 2003.

Books by R. Buckminster Fuller:

  • 4D Timelock, (Privately published 1928, Chicago, Illinois; 200 copies) Biotechnic Press, Lama Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1,000 copy edition). ©1929, 1970. ©1972, paperback.
  • Nine Chains to the Moon, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, New York, London, Toronto ©1938, hardback; republished Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1963, paperback.
  • The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller with Robert W. Marks, Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1960.
  • Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization, Simon & Schuster, New York. ©1962.
  • Education Automation, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1963, paperback.
  • Ideas and Integrities, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. ©1963, hardback; Collier, Macmillan, Toronto, Canada. ©1963, paperback.
  • No More Secondhand God, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1963.
  • Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, E.P. Dutton & Co., New York. ©1963, 1971.
  • Utopia or Oblivion, Bantam Books, New York. ©1969.
  • I Seem to Be a Verb, with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore, Bantam Books, New York. ©1970
  • Intuition, Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1970; Impact Publishers, San Luis Obispo, California, paperback.
  • Earth, Inc., Anchor Press, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York. ©1973.
  • Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, with E.J. Applewhite, Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., New York. ©1975.
  • Tetrascroll, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, A Cosmic Fairy Tale, Limited Edition. Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York. ©1976. St. Martin’s Press, New York. ©1975 and 1982.
  • And It Came to Pass – Not to Stay, Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., New York. ©1976.
  • Synergetics 2: Further Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, with E.J. Applewhite, Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., New York City, New York, ©1979.
  • Critical Path, with Kiyoshi Kuromiya, adjuvant. St. Martin’s Press, New York City, New York. ©1980.
  • Grunch of Giants, St. Martin’s Press, New York. ©1983.
  • Inventions, The Patented Works of R. Buckminster Fuller, St. Martin’s Press, New York City, New York. ©1983.

Selected Biographies of R. Buckminster Fuller:

  • Bucky, A Guided Tour of Buckminster Fuller, by Hugh Kenner. William Morrow & Company, Inc. New York, ©1973
  • Buckminster Fuller’s Universe, His Life and Work, by Lloyd Steven Sieden. Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, New York. ©1989, hardback. ©2000, paperback
  • Inventor of the Future, The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, by Alec Nevala-Lee. Dey St., An Imprint of William Morrow, ©2022