Imagined Futures : Writing, Science, and Modernity in the To-Day and To-Morrow Book Series, 1923-31

This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trübner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, André Maurois, and many others. The study combines a comprehensive account of its interest, history, and range with a discussion of its key concerns, tropes, and influence. The argument focuses on science and technology, not only as the subject of many of the volumes, but also as method—especially through the paradigm of the human sciences—applied to other disciplines; and as a source of metaphors for representing other domains. It also includes chapters on war, technology, cultural studies, and literature and the arts. This book has three main aims. First, to reinstate the series as a vital contribution to the writing of modernity. Second, to reappraise modernism’s relation to the future, establishing a body of progressive writing which moves beyond the discourses of post-Darwinian degeneration and post-war disenchantment, projecting human futures rather than mythic or classical pasts. Third, to show how, as a co-ordinated body of futurological writing, the series is also revealing about the nature and practices of modern futurology. Cover Imagined Futures: Writing, Science, and Modernity in the To-Day and To-Morrow Book Series, 1923‒31 Copyright Dedication Preface and Acknowledgements Contents List of Illustrations Introduction Introductions to To-Day and To-Morrow Futurology Popular Science Time, Modernity, and Futurology in To-Day and To-Morrow Eugenics Prosthetics The Value of Past Predictions Prestige and Influence The Unique Character of the Series The Sociology of the Series Introductions to the Future: The Future in Theory Future Orientation Futurology before the First World War Futurology after the War PART I: SCIENCE, IMAGINATION, LANGUAGE, AND COMMUNICATION 1: ‘A Scientific Age’: Science, Imagination, and Popularization Haldane and Bernal Haldane’s Daedalus Bernal’s The World, the Flesh, and the Devil Matter, Consciousness, Time, and Language Narrativity, Temporality, and Discourse: Ten Theses on Science and the Arts 2: Conflict, Connectivity, and the Tropes of Futurology War Future History Joined Up Thinking/Thinking Networks: Rhetorics of Unification PART II: HUMAN SCIENCES 3: Human Sciences Introduction Social Sciences Religion Science Sceptics Politics Education Sexuality and Morality Conclusion PART III: TECHNOLOGY, MEDIA, CULTURE, AND THE ARTS 4: ‘The machine man of 1925’: To-Day and To-Morrow and the Technological Extension of Man The Technological Extension of Man 5: To-Day and To-Morrow, Cultural Studies, and Everyday Life Introduction: Cultural Studies Media and Everyday Life: The Press, Advertising, and Propaganda Communications and Travel Home and Family Family and Law The Environment Leisure Conclusion: War and the Life of Everyday Life 6: To-Day and To-Morrow, Literature, and Modernism Literature and the Arts in To-Day and To-Morrow Modernist Responses: Case Studies Aldous Huxley James Joyce T. S. Eliot Wyndham Lewis Evelyn Waugh and Others Conclusion The Ending of the Series Concluding Evaluation APPENDIX A: The Book History of the Series Sales Figures Afterlives of the Series Routledge Library Edition APPENDIX B: Complete Chronological Listing of the To-Day and To-Morrow Series Bibliography Index This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trübner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh MacDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, André Maurois, and many others. The study combines a comprehensive account of its interest, history, and range with a discussion of its key concerns, tropes, and influence. The argument focuses on science and technology, not only as the subject of many of the volumes, but also as method--especially through the paradigm of the human sciences--applied to other disciplines; and as a source of metaphors for representing other domains. It also includes chapters on war, technology, cultural studies, and literature and the arts. This book aims to reinstate the series as a vital contribution to the writing of modernity, and to reappraise modernism's relation to the future, establishing a body of progressive writing which moves beyond the discourses of post-Darwinian degeneration and post-war disenchantment, projecting human futures rather than mythic or classical pasts. It also shows how, as a co-ordinated body of futurological writing, the series is also revealing about the nature and practices of modern futurology itself. This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trubner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh MacDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, Andre Maurois, and many others. The study combines a comprehensive account of its interest, history, and range with a discussion of its key concerns, tropes, and influence. The argument focuses on science and technology, not only as the subject of many of the volumes, but also as method--especially through the paradigm of the human sciences--applied to other disciplines; and as a source of metaphors for representing other domains. It also includes chapters on war, technology, cultural studies, and literature and the arts. This book aims to reinstate the series as a vital contribution to the writing of modernity, and to reappraise modernism's relation to the future, establishing a body of progressive writing which moves beyond the discourses of post-Darwinian degeneration and post-war disenchantment, projecting human futures rather than mythic or classical pasts. It also shows how, as a co-ordinated body of futurological writing, the series is also revealing about the nature and practices of modern futurology itself. This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trubner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, Andre Maurois, and many others. The study combines a comprehensive account of its interest, history, and range with a discussion of its key concerns, tropes, and influence. 0The argument focuses on science and technology, not only as the subject of many of the volumes, but also as method-especially through the paradigm of the human sciences-applied to other disciplines; and as a source of metaphors for representing other domains. It also includes chapters on war, technology, cultural studies, and literature and the arts.0This book aims to reinstate the series as a vital contribution to the writing of modernity, and to reappraise modernism's relation to the future, establishing a body of progressive writing which moves beyond the discourses of post-Darwinian degeneration and post-war disenchantment, projecting human futures rather than mythic or classical pasts. It also shows how, as a co-ordinated body of futurological writing, the series is also revealing about the nature and practices of modern futurology itself The first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series which published 110 books from 1923 to 1931 and included works by J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, and André Maurois. The first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series which published 110 books from 1923 to 1931 and included works by J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, and Andre Maurois.