A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov by Peter J. Bowler

Abstract

607 BOOKS IN REVIEW Shakespeare weighs states and statesmen on the scale not of what is best, but of what is “better.” The strengths and weaknesses of his book are on full display in the chapter on utopian elements in popular music. What could have been the most intriguing section of the book is marred by a lack of analytical momentum. It is not surprising to find that the wish for a better world is a common theme in rock as well as in rap, but there is no overarching point about the significance of utopian motifs in music. Some of the songs he cites are interesting for the ironic gaze they cast on the wish, while more recent tunes express a brutal view of what constitutes personal happiness. Blaim takes a classificatory approach that, while making scattered references to historical events, fails to achieve a grounding in historical consciousness. Thus, the chapter, which might have yielded an intriguing reflection on contemporary youth culture, ends on an anodyne reference to John Lennon’s “Imagine” (1971). A doc-trinaire attachment to the theme of better worlds in its most literal guise results in the neglect of the worldtransforming impact of rock music, which has spurred the emergence of youth culture around the globe while also making the transgression of the most ancient moral codes into something quotidian and innocuous. The final four chapters of the book are devoted to topics relating to literary theory in communist Poland and the Soviet Union. The section dealing with the function accorded to literary criticism in the Soviet Union presents little that is new, but the chapter on semiotics, which focuses on the work of Yuri Lotman, yields a concept that might have given Blaim’s book the unifying principle it so sorely lacks. Lotman regards both dialogue and conflict as fundamental to the health of both the individual and society. Does this make Lotman’s philosophy utopian or anti-utopian? It is a pity that Blaim, while conscious of this question, did not rearrange the texts in his study to pursue the questions that preoccupy Lotman, such as the value of self-correction and the possibility of cultural development, in the composition and the interpretation of utopian texts.—Peter Paik, Yonsei University Voices Prophesying Progress (or Crying Beware! Beware!). Peter J. Bowler. A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov. New York: Cambridge UP, 2017. x+287 pp. $74.99 hc, $24.99 pbk. Despite the apparent implications of its subtitle, A History of the Future is not primarily a study of futuristic sf or even of future fiction generally. There are numerous references to Wells, Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, and significant (but fewer) references to other sf writers (e.g., Robert A. Heinlein and Olaf Stapledon), as well as well-known “mainstream” futuristic writers (Aldous Huxley and George Orwell), but no extended readings of their works. Instead, the subject of this book is futurology in all its forms, with brief mentions of literary futures introduced as needed. Even more than literary texts, Peter Bowler relies on popular science writing, both in books and in magazines. The books include two that are likely to be familiar to anyone interested in early British sf, J.B.S. Haldane’s Daedalus: Or Science and the Future (1924) and J.D. Bernal’s The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929), as well as a range of others less well 608 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) known. Examples of the latter class are The World in 2030 (1930) by the Earl of Birkenhead (less grandly named F.E. Smith), The Birth of the Future (1934) by Peter Ritchie Calder, and several books by “Professor” A.M. Low, especially The Future (1925) and Our Wonderful World of Tomorrow (1934). The magazines most frequently cited include the long-defunct British periodicals Armchair Science, Conquest, Harmsworth Popular Science, Meccano Magazine, and Practical Mechanics, as well as the still viable American publication Popular Mechanics. Bowler’s other sources include newspaper articles, advertisements, government projects, corporate statements, world fairs—anything that would reflect trends in the attitudes toward progress, by which Bowler means...