All Tomorrow's Cultures

Short, useful, and often delightful." * Science Fiction Studies "This book raises some interesting questions about anthropological engagements with the future...[and] opens up provocative and controversial avenues of thought and investigation." * JRAI "Though All Tomorrow's Cultures is at its heart a scholarly text, its revelations are sure to fascinate not only diligent students of human culture but also anyone with a keen interest in creating or reading literature that imagines the future of humanity. Highly recommended especially for college library and anthropology shelves." * Midwest Review How will we live in the future? Are we moving towards global homogeneity? Will the world succumb to the global spread of fast food and Hollywood movies? Or are there other possibilities? In this book, Samuel Collins argues not only for the importance of the future of culture, but also stresses its centrality in anthropological thought over the last century. Beginning with 19th-century anthropology and continuing today in the work of anthropologies of emergent sciences, anthropologists have not only used their knowledge of present cultural configurations to speculate on future culture but have also used their assumptions about the future of culture to understand the present.