Looking Backward: 2162-2012 A View from a Future Libertarian Republic

by Beth Cody

What would a free nation actually look like?

Professor Julian West is all too aware of the problems facing the United States in 2012: poverty, endless wars and corporate corruption of democracy. He believes that government could fix these ills, if only government could do more. But following a fluke accident, West awakens after 150 years of slumber in a new nation that has largely resolved these issues - although not through the government solutions he has yearned for.Join the astonished and dubious West as he learns what caused the Decline and Fall of the former United States and how multiple new republics were formed out of the ashes of that failed state. West now inhabits the Free States of America, a nation of limited government, free markets and civil liberties, with freedom and prosperity for all who desire it. This modern retelling of Edward Bellamy's 19th-century socialist utopian novel "Looking 2000-1887" is updated for the 21st century, based on what we know now about the failure of collectivism. It is an enjoyable and easy-to-understand introduction to the ideas of libertarianism and offers a hopeful, encouraging and ultimately credible view of what a truly free nation might look like.

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 17, 2012

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Around Iowa City, Beth Cody is best known for the monthly Writers’ Group columns in which she offers her libertarian take on local and national topics. The difference between those columns and her debut novel — “Looking Backward: 2162-2012, A View from a Future Libertarian Republic” — is the difference between a simple homily and a grand work of systematic theology.

Taking inspiration from Edward Bellamy’s classic 1887 novel, “Looking Backward, 2000-1887,” Cody places a 21st-century history professor in suspended animation and has him awake in the year 2162. And like Bellamy, Cody uses his future storyline to explain how our country could/should function today.

The novel either is the perfect gift to give that special libertarian in your life, or it’s the perfect book for you to read to better understand that special libertarian in your life.

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffers from a failing I suspect it shares with its original socialist inspiration -- it isn't really a novel. The 'plot', such as it is, is mere window dressing to allow the protagonist to be regaled with stories of how the new libertarian society neatly addresses all of the social, economic and political ills of the present day. If the author really wanted to publish a set of essays explaining how a libertarian society would deal with health care, national defense, banking and transportation then she should have just done that.

That said, this stands head and shoulders above similar works of libertarian wish-fulfillment like Smith and Zelman's Hope, if only for its calmer, more reasoned tone. And the chapters dealing with the collapse of the United States and the emergence of the various new nations from the wreckage was an entertaining piece of future-historical speculation.

[Kevin]

Probability Broach did this better - but there were some fun parts.

"Virginia allowed its northernmost counties, which were essentially a suburb of Washington, DC, to remain with the United States ... "