A Short History of the Future

By: W. Warren Wagar

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Hardcover | 20 September 1989 | Edition Number 1

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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.

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Society & Culture Social Issues & Processes Social Forecasting Sociology & Anthropology Sociology Social Groups Miscellaneous Items Family & Health

Foreword to the Third Edition	p. ix
Foreword to the Second Edition	p. xi
Foreword	p. xiii
A Note to the Reader	p. 3
Preface and Dedication	p. 5
Earth, Inc.
The Last Age of Capital	p. 9
Interlude	p. 22
Ruling Circles	p. 28
Interlude	p. 44
Fouling the Nest	p. 52
Interlude	p. 69
The Molecular Society	p. 80
Interlude	p. 96
The Catastrophe of 2044	p. 104
Interlude	p. 121
Red Earth
The Coming of the Commonwealth	p. 129
Interlude	p. 151
The Great Housecleaning	p. 155
Interlude	p. 170
We, the People	p. 180
Interlude	p. 197
Vested Interests	p. 204
Interlude	p. 221
The House of Earth
The Small Revolution	p. 233
Interlude	p. 245
The Autonomous Society	p. 253
Interlude	p. 267
Transhumanity	p. 274
Envoi to Ingrid	p. 291
A Last Note to the Reader	p. 293
Afterword	p. 295
Genealogy of the Jensens and Brandts	p. 298
Chronology	p. 299
Studies of the Future: Suggested Reading	p. 307
Index of Persons	p. 313
Index of Subjects	p. 317
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

A Short History of the Future

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