Buckminster Fuller's Universe

Inventor of the geodesic dome and the phrase ``spaceship earth,'' Fuller reportedly once had an out-of-body experience in which a voice told him: ``You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe.'' The cocky, self-assured architect-engineer-poet-futurist, expelled twice from Harvard, who went on to shake the world with his technological innovations and vision of global unity, is brought down to earth in this absorbing biographical study. A lecturer-consultant specializing in Fuller's philosophy, Sieden here attempts to translate Fuller's ideas from the tech-guru's convoluted, jargon-laden style into accessible language. Though many of Fuller's major projects were commercial failures, Sieden succeeds in demonstrating how his search for Nature's underlying rules of harmony and efficiency is relevant to fields ranging from aviation and manufacturing technology to environmentalism, housing, parapsychology and extraterrestrial anthropology. Photos. (June)