A Short History of the Future [Paperback]

W. Warren Wagar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1992

A dazzling and imaginative combination of fiction and scholarship, this speculative history of the future is a memoir of postmodern times. This second edition shows how the events of 1989 and their aftermath reinforce Wagar's predictions of the future. "A breathtaking future history in the manner of Wells and Stapledon, unnerving in its mixture of facts, fiction, and personal perspectives."—George Zebrowski, New York Review of Science Fiction

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An imaginary history of the world from 1995 to 2200, this futurist tract can be read as science fiction or as an analytical extrapolation from current political-social trends. With magisterial sweep, it predicts the collapse of the global capitalist system (including the state capitalisms of the Soviet Union and China), the death of six billion people in World War III, mass starvation, the founding of a socialist-democratic world government. Then, around 2140, the Smalls, with their philosophy of eco-mysticism, usher in a decentralized, human-scale socioeconomic order. Wager, a historian at the State University of New York, loads the deck by including almost every conceivable scenario--solar power, colonies in space and on Mars, Arab-Israeli war, the disintegration of marriage and the family, genetic engineering, and so forth. His bold chronicle is thought-provoking, disturbing and immensely worthwhile.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

This future world history is presented as the reminiscences of a 115-year old historian, supposedly transcribed from a "holofilm" bequeathed to his granddaughter in the year 2200. Wagar is not a science fiction writer, although he uses the genre's methods. In a highly readable style he projects plausible societal futures based upon current trends. He outlines the fall of world capitalism in book one and forecasts shortages of natural resources and a nuclear catastrophe. In book two he describes the establishment of a socialist world government, and in book three tells how a decentralized utopian world community comes about. Since Arthur C. Clarke's July 20, 2019 ( LJ 1/87) and other books have focused more on technological changes in the immediate future, Wagar's sociological speculations constitute an important addition to the field of future studies. Recommended for most libraries.
- Gary D. Barber, SUNY at Fredonia Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2 Sub edition (December 30, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226869024
• ISBN-13: 978-0226869025
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,128,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Utopia of the 20th Century, November 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A Short History of the Future (Paperback)

This book is a career-crowning triumph. Wagar fans who have read "Building the City of Man" or his introduction to "The Open Conspiracy" will anticipate about a third of this book, but the investigation beyond the World Party is breathtakingly good. The book soars because it is not only first-class futurism, but also captivating fiction. Not every historian is also a great novelist, and so "A Short History of the Future" is a surprise. The book's strength is its credible presentation of alternate (centralized and decentralized) long-term scenarios. Its weakness is that it was written before the collapse of the USSR, and proposes a path that did not turn out to be so. But if you read past the particulars to the underlying dynamics, the analysis is both graceful and incisive.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not an 'end of the world' but a telling of the Future, March 14, 2001

By 

Cory Johnson (Greenwood, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Short History of the Future (Paperback)

This is an amazing book, I wish more were writen like it but it seems that many authors do not have the intelligence or sociological grasp of the future as does W. Warren Wagar. This story is not an 'end of the world' type genre story but the ultimate truth that one arrives to is that no government, scientific, or socioligal schemes or ideologies are going to perfect man. though we may be a more advanced people who change in beliefs and idea over the span of human history, we still will generally be human, and W. Warren Wagar accomplishes this profound realization. I feel fortunate that there is atleast one book about the future that does not put us in a utopia or self destrusted hell on earth but rather the same innevitable patterns of history; were still living, and life is still hard.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring, June 6, 2006

By 

Timothy Comeau (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Short History of the Future (Paperback)

I first read this in the year 2000 when my thoughts were naturally attuned to wondering what the next century ahead of us would bring. I found everything I was looking for in this book, and since I was rather ignorant of what exactly Marxism and Socialism were all about, I found this a very helpful introduction.

To be clear, I'd picked up the most recent edition published in 1999, which had been rewritten to accommodate the changes that had taken place since 1989 (notably, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had featured prominently in the first edition).

This book hasn't aged that well for me, for I now read it as slightly naïve, but it remains a book that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of political activism and how things could be different rather than just accepting a depressing status quo.