• A History of the Future

  • A World Made by Hand Novel, Book 3
  • By: James Howard Kunstler
  • Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
  • Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (411 ratings)

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A History of the Future  By  cover art

A History of the Future

By: James Howard Kunstler
Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
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Publisher's summary

A History of the Future is the third thrilling novel in Kunstler's World Made by Hand series, an exploration of family and morality as played out in the small town of Union Grove.

Following the catastrophes of the 21st century - the pandemics, the environmental disaster, the end of oil, the ensuing chaos - people are doing whatever they can to get by and pursuing a simpler and sometimes happier existence. In little Union Grove in upstate New York, the townspeople are preparing for Christmas. Without the consumerist shopping frenzy that dogged the holidays of the previous age, the season has become a time to focus on family and loved ones. It is a stormy Christmas Eve when Robert Earle's son Daniel arrives back from his two years of sojourning throughout what is left of the United States. He collapses from exhaustion and illness, but as he recovers, he tells the story of the break-up of the nation into three uneasy independent regions and his journey into the dark heart of the new Foxfire Republic centered in Tennessee and led by the female evangelical despot Loving Morrow. In the background, Union Grove has been shocked by the Christmas Eve double murder by a young mother of her husband and infant son. Town magistrate Stephen Bullock is in a hanging mood.

A History of the Future is attention-grabbing and provocative but also lyrical, tender, and comic - a vision of a future of America that is becoming more and more convincing, and perhaps even desirable, with each passing day.

©2014 James Kunstler (P)2014 Blackstone Audio

What listeners say about A History of the Future

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Uncomfortable fiction

Well, if you like your post apocalyptic fiction with a side of pedophilia and enjoy constant reminders of how much better it was in a society of abundance, you will love this series.

It cold make for a dangerous drinking game. Every time kunstler waxes on about the losses, drink a shot of grain alcohol. Always 100 proof, as he states and restates.

Did I mention libertarian wet dream? Nuff said.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I have loved the entire series.

This has been a great series. The story is well crafted. In this installment I think it spends a little too much time on Daniel's story. It is a story within the story. Overall this story is very thoughtful when it comes to imagining what a future with less energy might look like. The narrator is fantastic. If you sink into the story it will start to seem like you are hearing many different voices instead of just one voice actor. The performance is amazing.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story, great reading, and characters!

I loved it, great story line. I hated when it ended. I wanted more!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great stuff

These books offer an engaging and thorough look at a post oil world. 15% of it all is describing food and 15% is describing burying people.

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Movie?

This series is wonderful! it would make an excellent movie or, even better, an epic series...

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A book I could not finish

once started it takes a lot for me not to finish a book, but I gave up on this one with 3 hours left to go. The retelling of the returning son's experience was poorly written, the author struggling to write dialog for anyone that isn't an old white man. That struggle is also seen in his depiction of women and topics of mental health, special needs and racism. I won't be finishing this series.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Full Steam

Any additional comments?

Jim hits the ground running and never takes his foot off the gas.

He shifts focus a bit in this book, widening the narrative scope and shifting away from some of the more quotidian elements that added a novelty and richness to the earlier books, but aren't really necessary at this stage of the story.

There's an interesting dichotomy happening here, because the book feels rough-hewn (deadlines to be met, and so forth) and it a little more sensational than the first two volumes (they'd like to sell a few more copies of this one), but Kuntsler pulls it off, and occasionally tosses in passages of casually spectacular language that literally stun. I tend to think of Jim as a social observer and critic first, and writer second; that these novels are a tool for making some of his social ideas accessible to a wider audience, but this book, and this whole series, retroactively have come to stand fully on their literary merits. Independent of Kuntler's world-view and prognostications these books are damn fine reads.

The vocal performance is really well done. Everything you want, nothing you don't.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Obsessed with NASCAR

idk what this dude's damage is but he must really hate NASCAR and hillbillies something fierce. It keeps coming up in each book.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Bland, derivative and preaching

Howard has a ridiculous idealistic view of an agrarian past that he has tried to wrap into a post-apocalyptic setting. A no-stakes story where being gay means subscribing to a left-wing script in our modern times which can simply be overcome by simple living and abstinence.

All the characters solve their predicaments with an aw-shucks attitude and anyone who doesn't follow his script is simply “doing it wrong”.

If you are looking for a pos-apocalyptic little house on the prairie or possibly even a trip to Andy Griffiths Mayberry, I suggest you watch either of those shows and imagine a nuclear holocaust happened to bring you there. They would be far more enjoyable if only slightly less saccharine.

And if you are like me and started wondering why his books started getting more conservatively preachy, just look at his Wikipedia page. Howard is a devotee of Trump, and conspiracy theories, and has at best some bizarre theories on gay marriage's effect on society.

Drop this book. It's not worth the time. If he had “controversial” ideas that were well-written, I may suggest challenging your worldview, but alas, this is just a flavorless sandwich wrapped in wonder bread.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Better than the second book

The second book should have been called sex and death in a hand made world. This book continues the lives of the strange characters of union grove, but also contain Daniel’s story which focus on the world and former US outside Washington county NY and this is the reason to read it. The second book made my learn more about the author and he is a strange duck but his detail and hypothesis about the near future are remarkable and what have kept me reading the books. That said it’s not perfect and listening to the books often feels like a 19th century story.

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