Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century
Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century
by Matthew Benjamin Cole
University of Michigan Press, 2025
ISBNs
Cloth: 978-0-472-07774-8
Paper: 978-0-472-05774-0
eISBN: 978-0-472-90533-1 (OA)
About the Book
After centuries of contemplating utopias, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers began to warn of dystopian futures. Yet these fears extended beyond the canonical texts of dystopian fiction into postwar discourses on totalitarianism, mass society, and technology, as well as subsequent political theories of freedom and domination. Fear the Future demonstrates the centrality of dystopian thinking to twentieth century political thought, showing the pervasiveness of dystopian images, themes, and anxieties.
Offering a novel reading of major themes and thinkers, Fear the Future explores visions of the future from literary figures such as Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell; political theorists such as Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault; and mid-century social scientists such as Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, David Reisman, C. Wright Mills, and Jacques Ellul. It offers a comparative analysis of distinct intellectual and literary traditions, including modern utopianism and anti-utopianism, midcentury social science, Frankfurt School critical theory, and continental political philosophy. With detailed case studies of key thinkers from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century, the book synthesizes secondary literature and research from a range of disciplinary areas, including in political theory, intellectual history, literary studies, and utopian studies. This wide-ranging reconstruction shows that while dystopian thinking has illustrated the dangers of domination and dehumanization, it has also illuminated new possibilities for freedom.
Offering a novel reading of major themes and thinkers, Fear the Future explores visions of the future from literary figures such as Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell; political theorists such as Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault; and mid-century social scientists such as Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, David Reisman, C. Wright Mills, and Jacques Ellul. It offers a comparative analysis of distinct intellectual and literary traditions, including modern utopianism and anti-utopianism, midcentury social science, Frankfurt School critical theory, and continental political philosophy. With detailed case studies of key thinkers from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century, the book synthesizes secondary literature and research from a range of disciplinary areas, including in political theory, intellectual history, literary studies, and utopian studies. This wide-ranging reconstruction shows that while dystopian thinking has illustrated the dangers of domination and dehumanization, it has also illuminated new possibilities for freedom.
About the Author
Matthew Benjamin Cole is Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Binghamton University.
Reviews
“This book is a significant contribution to twentieth-century Euro-American political thought. In the works of dystopian writers, Cole finds a fragile but insistent attempt to defend freedom from oppressive social, political and technological forces. This is their critical, cautionary function—and the source of their greatest value. To examine these efforts, the book combines—in an unusual, insightful, and creative manner—scholarship from political theory, intellectual history, and literary studies. The result is a compelling work of scholarship.”— Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge
“This timely and imaginative exploration of 20th century dystopian literature surveys the range of powerfully bleak interventions which projected fear-laden futures in an era defined for many by war and cataclysm. Cole deftly unpacks Ballardian, Huxleyan, Orwellian and other visions of dictatorship to focus less on natural disasters than the abuse of power, and to reveal the growing centrality of dystopia in its totalitarian form both to our world and our worldview. The growing convergence of so many of these nightmares of future and not-so-distant evils and the constant vying of the imaginary with the real for terroristic primacy makes for grim and compelling reading. We have been warned . . . so often.”— Gregory Claeys, University of London
Tags
Dystopian, Political Imagination, Dystopias, Dystopia, Future, Political science, History & Theory, Intellectual life, Fiction, 20th century, History
Open Access Information
License: CC BY-NC
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