Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction

This collection of interdisciplinary essays examines some of the ways in which writers, artists, film-makers, strategists and political thinkers have imagined the future over the last two centuries. Although a number of contributions discuss 'mainstream' science fiction, the collection's emphasis is not on any single genre, but rather on the ways in which different histories - technological, cultural, military, ideological - generate and inform different modes of speculation about things to come. These histories also disclose that our patterns of expectation are much influenced by our relationship to the past.

ALAN SANDISON is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of New England, NSW. His publications include The Wheel of Empire (1967), The Last Man in Europe (1974: later revised and enlarged as George Orwell: After 1984 [1986]), and Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism (1996).

ROBERT DINGLEY is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New England, NSW and was formerly a Research Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. His publications include The Land of the Golden Fleece (1995).