The History of the Future

by Edward McPherson

What does it mean to think about Dallas in relationship to Dallas? In The History of the Future, McPherson reexamines American places and the space between history, experience, and myth. Private streets, racism, and the St. Louis World’s Fair; fracking for oil and digging for dinosaurs in North Dakota boomtowns—Americana slides into apocalypse in these essays, revealing us to ourselves.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, History, American History

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 2, 2017

Reviews

[Guy Choate · Rating 5 out of 5]

History should be taught to high school students in the way that McPherson presents it in this collection of essays—he makes the reader understand how the history of a subject is relevant today. He doesn’t overlook popular culture, and he doesn’t overlook the parts of history that are only tangentially related to the subject matter. Because of that, it becomes clear that there is an art to his method. This book is as educational as it is entertaining. And of course, at times it’s infuriating and terrifying. Highly recommend.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent essays and perspectives. This is a keeper.
It took me a bit to settle into the writer's cadence of chunks of past/present/past/present, but then it was smooth sailing.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first essay, a history of Dallas intertwined with a history of Dallas, is brilliant. None of the others are as good, and McPherson inserts some self-congratulatory remarks to show his progressive bona fides; he's better writing about fracking than he is about Ferguson and his Monday-morning quarterbacking the use of the atomic bomb is both predictable and myopic. (The quotations he uses are fine but cherry-picked to suit what I assume was his position long before beginning his essay on Los Alamos, which is a shame, because so much of that essay is terrific.) Still, there's no denying the guy can write.

[Carl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book of essays on topics dealing with the history of the United States from a somewhat social perspective, including the author's own family. I have never read McPherson and didn't know what to expect, but his collection blew me away. Highly recommend this book for essay fans and fans of the author.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I was less interested in the essays about Dallas and about Gettysburg, the rest were great! I especially liked the ones about St. Louis and its forgotten Worlds Fair (and Olympic Games), about the Bakken oil rush, about nuclear weapons, and about the southern California doomsday bunker business.

[Jacob Hoefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward McPherson draws upon the mundane details of the past to try and explain (or at least explore) some of the most significant moments in American history.
What surprised me most about these essays was how well written they are. They each had such a distinct voice. It feels almost intimate. You will not only gain insight into some of the most landmark events in U.S. history, but you also get to learn a great deal about McPherson himself. Highly recommended.

[Hampton Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with the author after reading his fascinating book "The Backwash Squeeze", and I have since read almost all of his essays and other works. He has such a unique voice for weaving first-person encounters into the history and context of fascinating and often under-reported stories of our nation and culture. I'd recommend this to anyone as it is as enjoyable as it is revealing.