Editing Future history

{{short description|List of fictional future events}}
{{About|the general concept|Robert A. Heinlein's series of short stories and novels|Future History (Heinlein)}}
{{original research|date=October 2020}}

A '''future history''', '''imaginary history''' or '''anticipatory history'''<ref>Ostrowski, Witold. “[https://dspace.uni.lodz.pl/bitstream/handle/11089/41606/ZRL_5_Witold%20Ostrowski%2028-43_compressed.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Imaginary History].” Zagadnienia Rodzajow Literackich 3.2 (1960): 27-38</ref> is a fictional conjecture of the [[future]] used by authors of [[science fiction]] and other [[speculative fiction]] to construct a common background for stories. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided. The term can also be used to describe the subgenre of science fiction that uses this framework.<ref name="HDSF Future History">{{cite web |title=Future History |url=https://sfdictionary.com/view/313/future-history |website=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction |access-date=11 January 2024}}</ref>

A set of stories which share a backdrop but are not really concerned with the sequence of history in their universe are rarely considered future histories. For example, [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s [[Vorkosigan Saga]] is not generally considered a future history. Standalone stories which trace an arc of history are rarely considered future histories.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}

Future histories differ from [[alternate history]], in which different outcomes are ascribed to past events, because they consist of imagined events in the writer's future.

== History ==
''[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]'' calls ''The Ruins; Or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires'', by [[Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney]] (published in 1791) probably the first recognizable future history.<ref name= "SFE Future Histories">{{cite encyclopedia |title= Future Histories |encyclopedia= The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |edition = Fourth |date= 2021 |last= Langford |first= David |author-link= David Langford |editor1-last= Clute |editor1-first= John |editor1-link= John Clute |editor2-last= Langford |editor2-first= David |publisher= SFE Ltd/Ansible Editions |location= London and Reading |url= https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/future_histories |access-date= 11 January 2021}}</ref> In it, the narrator is transported into space and sees the Earth as a whole while its history unfolds, which Volney uses to present his political and theological ideas.<ref name= "SFE Volney">{{cite encyclopedia |title= M Volney |encyclopedia= The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |edition = Fourth |date= 2021 |last= Clute |first= John |author-link= John Clute |editor1-last= Clute |editor1-first= John |editor2-last= Langford |editor2-first= David |editor2-link= David Langford |publisher= SFE Ltd/Ansible Editions |location= London and Reading |url= https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/volney_m |access-date= 11 January 2021}}</ref> It lists similar examples from the 19th and 20th centuries by [[William Delisle Hay]], [[Alfred Döblin]] (''[[Berge Meere und Giganten]]'', 1924 ), [[André Maurois]], and [[Olaf Stapledon]] (''[[Last and First Men]]'', 1930, and ''[[Star Maker]]'', 1937). Some of these purported to be excerpts of a history book from the future, having no personal protagonists but rather describing the development of nations and societies over decades and centuries. Other related classic works include:

* [[Adam Mickiewicz]]'s lost ''{{ill|Future History (book)|lt=Future History|pl|Historia przyszłości}}'' from the first half of the 19th century<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|author=Andrzej Niewiadowski |date=1984 |journal=Pismo Literacko-artystyczne |number=12 |page=84-96 |title=Tradycje fantastyki naukowej w literaturze polskiej |volume=31}}<!-- auto-translated from Polish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
* [[Jack London]]'s ''[[The Unparalleled Invasion]]'' (1914) describing a devastating war between an alliance of Western nations and China in 1975, ending with a complete genocide of the Chinese people. It is described in a short footnote as "Excerpt from Walt Mervin's 'Certain Essays in History'{{-"}}.
* André Maurois's ''The War against the Moon'' (1928), where a band of well-meaning conspirators intend to avert a devastating world war by uniting humanity in hatred of a fictitious Lunar enemy, only to find that the moon is truly inhabited and that they had unwittingly set off the first [[interplanetary war]]. This, too, is explicitly described as an excerpt from a future history book.
* [[H.G. Wells|H. G.&nbsp;Wells]]' ''[[The Shape of Things to Come]]'' (1933) contains numerous footnotes and references to the works of (mostly fictitious) prominent historians of the 20th and 21st centuries.

===In science fiction===
The first science fiction writer to create a future history may have been [[Neil R. Jones]] in his stories of the 1930s.<ref name="Ashley">Ashley, M. (April, 1989). The Immortal Professor, Astro Adventures No.7, p.6.</ref><ref name= "SFE Neil R. Jones">{{cite encyclopedia |title= Jones, Neil R |encyclopedia= The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |edition = Fourth |date= 2021 |last= Clute |first= John |author-link= John Clute |editor1-last= Clute |editor1-first= John |editor2-last= Langford |editor2-first= David |editor2-link= David Langford |publisher= SFE Ltd/Ansible Editions |location= London and Reading |url= https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/volney_m |access-date= 11 January 2021}}</ref> The term appears to have been coined by [[John W. Campbell, Jr.|John W. Campbell,&nbsp;Jr.]], the editor of ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]'', in the February 1941 issue of the magazine, to describe [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Future History (Heinlein)|Future History]]''; the issue included a timeline of the stories.<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/> However, a fan had used the term, with "history" in quotation marks, in a letter to the pulp ''[[Thrilling Wonder Stories]]'' the previous year.<ref name="HDSF Future History"/>

== Other future histories ==
* [[Poul Anderson]]'s two future histories: [[The Psychotechnic League]] and his later [[Poul Anderson#Technic History|Technic History]] (see [[Nicholas van Rijn]], [[Dominic Flandry]])
* [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[Foundation (book series)|Foundation]]'', ''[[Galactic Empire series|Galactic Empire]]'' and ''[[Robot series|Robot]]'' series<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>
* [[Iain M. Banks]]' [[Culture]] series<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>
* [[Stephen Baxter (author)|Stephen Baxter]]'s two future histories: ''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'', 1991–2018, and his ''[[Evolution (Baxter novel)|Evolution]]'' short story collection<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>
* [[James Blish]]'s ''[[Cities in Flight]]''
* [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s [[Alliance-Union]] series<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>
* [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Known Space]]''
* [[H. Beam Piper]]'s Terro-Human Future History
* [[Alastair Reynolds]]' [[Revelation Space universe]]<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>
* [[Clifford D. Simak]]'s [[City (Clifford D. Simak novel)|''City'']] stories
* [[Cordwainer Smith]]'s ''[[Instrumentality of Mankind]]'' stories<ref name="SFE Future Histories"/>

==Future becoming past==
The future projected in a "future history" can often turn out to be wildly inaccurate.

For example, in 1933 [[H. G. Wells]] postulated in ''[[The Shape of Things to Come]]'' a [[Second World War]] in which [[Nazi Germany]] and [[Poland]] are evenly matched militarily, fighting an indecisive war over ten years; and Poul Anderson's early 1950s [[The Psychotechnic League|Psychotechnic League]] depicted a world undergoing a devastating [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]] in 1958, yet by the early 21st century managing not only to rebuild the ruins on Earth but also engage in extensive space colonization of the Moon and several planets. A writer possessing knowledge of the actual swift collapse of Poland in World War II and the enormous actual costs of far less ambitious space programs in a far less devastated world would have been unlikely to postulate such outcomes.<ref>Robert F. Vernon, "Reasoned and unreasoned speculations about what will be and what might have been" in Marcia Gracie (ed.) "Trends in Speculative Fiction", New York, 1998</ref> ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' was set in the future and featured developments in space travel and habitation  which have not occurred on the timescale postulated.

A problem with future history science fiction is that it will date and be overtaken by real historical events, for instance H. Beam Piper's future history, which included a [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]] in 1973, and much of the future history of ''[[Star Trek]]''. [[Jerry Pournelle]]'s "[[CoDominium]]" future history assumed that the [[Cold War]] would end with the United States and Soviet Union establishing a co-rule of the world, the CoDominium of the title, which would last into the 22nd Century—rather than the Soviet Union collapsing in 1991.

There are several ways this is dealt with. One solution to the problem is when some authors set their stories in an indefinite future, often in a society where the current calendar has been disrupted due to a [[societal collapse]] or undergone some form of distortion due to the impact of technology. Related to the first, some stories are set in the very remote future and only deal with the author's contemporary history in a sketchy fashion, if at all (e.g. the original ''Foundation'' Trilogy by Asimov). Another related case is where stories are set in the near future, but with an explicitly [[Alternate history|allohistorical]] past, as in [[Ken MacLeod]]'s ''[[The Engines of Light Trilogy|Engines of Light]]'' series.

In other cases, the merging of the fictional history and the known history is done through extensive use of [[retroactive continuity]]. In yet other cases, such as the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' television series and the fiction based on it, much use is made of secret history, in which the events that take place are largely secret and not known to the general public.

As with Heinlein, some authors simply write a detailed future history and accept the fact that events will overtake it, making the sequence into a ''[[de facto]]'' [[alternate history]].

Lastly, some writers formally transform their future histories into [[alternate history]], once they had been overtaken by events. For example, Poul Anderson started The Psychotechnic League history in the early 1950s, assuming a nuclear war in 1958—then a future date. When it was republished in the 1980s, a new foreword was added explaining how that history's timeline diverged from ours and led to war.

== See also ==
* [[Alternate future]]
* [[Near future in fiction]]
* [[Far future in fiction]]
* [[Futures studies]]
* [[Post-apocalyptic science fiction]]
* [[World War III]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Science fiction}}

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[[Category:Future history| ]]
[[Category:Systems thinking]]
[[Category:Works about the future|History]]
[[Category:Science fiction themes]]