"'DOING MORE WITH LESS' TO SERVE HUMANKIND'S BASIC NEEDS": FIRST EDITION OF CRITICAL PATH, AN EXCEPTIONAL PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION BY BUCKMINSTER FULLER TO THE PARENTS OF HIS COLLEAGUE ON THE BOOK, KIYOSHI KUROMIYA, ALONG WITH KUROMIYA'S OWN INSCRIPTION TO HIS PARENTS

(KUROMIYA, Kiyoshi) FULLER, R. Buckminster. Critical Path. New York: St. Martin's, (1981). Thick octavo, original maroon cloth, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $2200.

First edition, an especially memorable presentation copy of one of Buckminster Fuller's final books, wonderfully inscribed in the year of publication on the title page by him to the parents of Kuromiya, Fuller's trusted assistant on Critical Path, writing "To: Hitoshi and Emiko Kuromiya. With thanks to God that their son has become my friend and colleague and with my respectful and warmest regard to themselves, Buckminster Fuller 3/29/81," this copy also featuring Kuromiya's inscription on the half title, "4/1/81 For my parents: Whose love and support in difficult times has provided me with the space in which to think for myself. Love Kiyoshi Kuromiya."

"Buckminster Fuller predicted in Critical Path that by the end of the 20th century the billionaires of the world would hold not physical property but information property. His prognostication about real wealth has become a reality…. As an architect, author, and 40 other titles, he may best be remembered for his geodesic domes, but he is much more" (Zung, Buckminster Fuller, xi-xiv). "Although Fuller had neither an architect's formal training nor an architect's license, and his geodesic dome blueprints had to be signed by a licensed associate, he was acclaimed by architects and designers… Fuller's ideas took in the whole of man's environment and experience and potentialities, and he believed with crotchety single-mindedness that 'there is absolutely nothing that cannot be done.' Frank Lloyd Wright called him 'a man with more absolute integrity than any man I have ever known'… His work represents the optimism of a futurist who believed in 'doing more with less' to serve humankind's basic needs" (New York Times). Issued along with a signed limited edition, no priority established. With numerous full- and in-text illustrations. Kiyoshi Kuromiya, who inscribed this book together with Fuller, became his valued colleague and assistant on Critical Path. He later recalled, following Fuller's death in 1983, that it was Fuller who used the term adjuvant, borrowed from medicine, to describe their friendship and working relationship. Kuromiya played a central role "in transcribing and editorially refining for publication his ideas, words, and extemporaneous 'thinking out loud'" (Introductory Note, Cosmography, vii).

A fine inscribed copy.