Heinlein's Future History celebrates the
social impact of technological change. As such, it celebrates the world in which
Heinlein lived and in which we live now that some of our year dates correspond
to those in the series. It is to be hoped that we will have a, beneficial,
"Revolt in 2100," if not sooner.
Although Heinlein anticipated future
changes, we are already living in a technologically changed world. This has been
true since the beginning of agriculture and increasingly true since the
seventeenth century. Imagine that we inhabit a fictitious future history written
in 1900 and read by people who really expected their pre-1914 regimes to survive
till 2014 or later.
Heinlein shows the impact of technology
on daily life, economics, politics and popular religion as well as the political
and religious misuse of communications technology. Much of what he describes is
paralleled in the real world. No one lives on the Moon yet because, despite the
arguments of Heinlein's character, Harriman, and of Heinlein's successors,
Anderson, Niven and Pournelle, the capital expenditure of space travel is too
great in relation to any perceived profit. The US seems to have raced to the
Moon to develop rocket and computer technology for use on Earth.
We are not in contact with any Martians
or Venerians, which are in any case marginal in the series. These were science
fictional props that were not necessary for Heinlein's speculations about rocket
technology although he did expect contact to be made with Martians. Despite the
existence of other intelligent species in and beyond the Solar System, the
Future History becomes mainly an account of the future of humanity comparable to
works by Wells and Stapledon.
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