WHEN men define the future as radically unprecedented, how can they prepare to cope with it? Statesmen have traditionally been students of history, on the assumption that history is full of precedents for the future. But even when statesmen are ready to agree that reading history may be useless, it is not easy to find substitutes. Statesmen are not likely to prefer learning from science fiction. Many of them are now prepared to accept at one level of consciousness that thermonuclear weapons have made history obsolete as a guide to action; but there is no agreement on whether adequate substitutes for history have been created.