A Short History of the Future

A Short History of the Future

by W. Warren Wagar
A Short History of the Future

A Short History of the Future

by W. Warren Wagar

Hardcover(1)

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Overview

In the tradition of H. G. Wells's The Shape of Things to Come, W. Warren Wagar's A Short History of the Future is a memoir of postmodern times. Cast in the form of a history book, the narrative voice of the book's powerful vision is that of a far-future historian, Peter Jensen, who leaves this account of the world from the 1990s to the opening of the twenty-third century as a gift to his granddaughter. A dazzling and imaginative combination of fiction and scholarship, Wagar's speculative history of the future alternates between descriptions of world events and intimate glimpses of his fictive historian's family through the ages.

Jensen's tale traces the flow of the future from the early twenty-first-century reign of a megacorporate global economy, to its sudden collapse in 2044, when nuclear catastrophe envelops the world. In the traumatic aftermath, a socialist world commonwealth comes into being in the year 2062, followed by a lengthy transition to a decentralized order of technologically mature autonomous societies, many located in outer space. The riveting literary interludes that follow each chapter take the form of letters and documents from the history of Jensen's family, evoking the everyday lives of people in the midst of these global-historical events. Here we meet a woman in Brazil whose son is dying from a new immuno-deficiency disease, two brothers comparing life on earth with life in a space colony, and many more.

Neither fiction nor nonfiction, Wagar's brilliantly creative work is not meant to forecast the future, but rather to draw attention to possibilities and alternatives for humankind and planet Earth. In doing so, it also serves as an unforgettable reminder that the future is being made now.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226869018
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 09/20/1989
Series: Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Ser.
Edition description: 1
Pages: 339
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

W. Warren Wagar is Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Binghamton. In addition to writing numerous science fiction short stories, Wagar is the author of seven scholarly books, including Terminal Visions, Good Tidings, The City of Man, and H. G. Wells and the World State.

Table of Contents

Foreword by W. Warren Wagar
A Note to the Reader
Preface and Dedication
Book the First: Earth, Inc.
1. The Last Age of Capital
Interlude
2. Ruling Circles
Interlude
3. Fouling the Nest
Interlude
4. The Molecular Society
Interlude
5. The Catastrophe of 2044
Interlude
Book the Second: Red Earth
6. The Coming of the Commonwealth
Interlude
7. The Great Housecleaning
Interlude
8. We, the People
Interlude
9. Vested Interests
Interlude
Book the Third: The House of Earth
10. The Small Revolution
Interlude
11. The Autonomous Society
Interlude
12. Transhumanity
Envoi to Ingrid
A Last Note to the Reader
Afterword by Immanuel Wallerstein
Genealogy of the Jensens and Brandts
Chronology
Studies of the Future: Suggested Reading
Index

What People are Saying About This

Charles R. Pellegrino

A real eye-opener. Thought-provoking and meticulously researched, with possibilities "both good and evil" that appear chillingly probable -- all the more so because you might never have considered them before. Wagar's study of the future is a remarkable blend of H. G. Wells's The Shape of Things to Come, and Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth. This book stands on its own as a Bible for the new Millenium, in which the horrors of the Apocalypse precede the promise of Genesis.

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