Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future

by Eric Dregni, Jonathan Dregni

Promises for the future were made; some sadly broken and some unfortunately honored. While we didn’t get household jetpacks and personal serving-drinks-by-the-pool robots, or even our orgasmatrons , we did get things like the super-fantastic building materials of the future—asbestos, lead, and foam. So just what was the utopian master plan for future households during the early twentieth century? Follies of Science is the keeper of such knowledge, offering glimpses into sparkling, smooth lead paint covering our living room walls, dazzling DDT foggers killing mosquitoes dead, alchemists transforming atoms into gold and diamonds, homeowners living in “The Foam House of the Future,” and, of course, commuters blasting away on their jet packs to work. Utopian indeed. Aptly illustrated with full-color and black-and-white classic imagery, the visions of the future spread across page after page, pulling the reader in to what could have been and what shouldn’t have been. Eric Dregni has written nine books, including Midwest Marvels , The Scooter Bible , Ads that Put America on Wheels , and Grazie a Dio non sono bolognese . As a 2004 Fulbright Fellow to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Dregni researched Scandinavian culture and roots for a forthcoming book. His time is divided between Italy, Norway, and Minneapolis where he is the curator for El Dorado Conquistador Museum and guitarist for the mock-rock trio Vinnie & the Stardüsters. Jonathan Dregni is a futurist and sci-fi enthusiast, raising a family midway between the soon-to-be domed cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota.

Genres: Science, Art, History, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Eric Dregni has written nine books including Midwest Marvels, The Scooter Bible, Ads that Put America on Wheels, and Grazie a Dio non Sono Bolognese. As a 2004 Fulbright Fellow to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Eric researched Scandinavian culture and roots for a forthcoming book. His time is divided between Italy, Norway, and Minneapolis where he is the curator for El Dorado Conquistador Museum and guitarist for the mock-rock trio Vinnie & the Stardüsters.

Reviews

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up and watching Star Trek with my physicist father gave me an appreciation for how people in history depicted our future. This book, which contains seven chapters, including Inventing Away War and Cities of the Future, looks at various scientific "advances" from the early to mid 20th century. This book shows that many of the predictions based on these scientific studies usually ended up being incorrect.

One of my favorite chapters, "Medical Marvels", contains medical ideas that I found extremely funny and a bit scary. One example is the Health Jolting Chair, which is a chair that women were to sit in in order to improve their feminine attractions. This chair, which is similar to a saddle-horse, exercises the internal organs by violently jostling the person who sits on it. Most of the ideas that the author talks about in this chapter can be found in the Collection of Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.

The book itself contains numerous illustrations and extra blurbs and old advertisements. These make the book aesthetically pleasing, but can be distracting and sometimes break up the books narration. This book is definitely more useful as entertainment.

[David Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept is fun, the illustrations often cool or amusing. But the brothers Dregni seemingly had no idea where to go from there. Their text is wordy, dull and typo-ridden. If only the authors had rocketed into the future to read this review!

[Blain]

I find what people thought the future would be like interesting