""If you study the past, you won't repeat its mistakes."" That's a hopeful sentiment, but as a formula for moving forward humanely, it's largely useless. A useful appeal to history would adopt the old saying, ""The farther you back up, the better you jump forward."" But the past to which most historians appeal doesn't go back far enough. The long time coming will be the time of living full lives as individuals while living in harmony with others as communities. Everything we need to do to bring that world about we've already done. We must only add humanity's prehistory to its history. It may come as a surprise that all the elements of a humane future can be found in this expanded timeframe, but it's the case. When we synthesize the life-serving aspects of the deep past with those of the recent past, we'll much shorten the time before the world we deserve comes into being. THE LONG TIME COMING attempts such a synthesis.