This book goes beyond the cultural histories of dystopia and utopia and into the problem of how societal futures are produced. Through a unique collection of national and transnational cases, it covers the struggle around future visions and prediction in the global Cold War era.

Foreword Michael D. Gordin Introduction: Toward a New History of the Future Jenny Andersson and Egle Rindzeviciute 1. Midwives of the Future: Futurism, Futures Studies and the Shaping of the Global Imagination Jenny Andersson 2. Expertise for the Future: The Emergence of Environmental Prediction c.1920-1970 Paul Warde and Sverker Sörlin 3. Energy Futures from the Social Market Economy to the Energiewende: The Politicization of West German Energy Debates, 1950-1990 Stefan Cihan Aykut 4. Technoscientific Cornucopian Futures versus Doomsday Futures: The World Models and The Limits to Growth Elodie Vieille-Blanchard 5. Towards a Joint Future Beyond the Iron Curtain: East-West Politics of Global Modelling Egle Rindzeviciute 6. Forecasting the Post-Socialist Future: Prognostika in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia, 1970-1989 Vítezslav Sommer 7. Official and Unofficial Futures of the Communism System: Romanian Futures Studies Between Control and Dissidence Ana-Maria Catanus 8. Virtually Nigeria: USAID, Simulated Futures, and the Politics of Postcolonial Expertise, 1964-1980 Kevin Baker 9. Pan-Africanism, Socialism and the Future: Development Planning in Ghana, 1951-1966 Jeff Grischow and Holger Weiss

Jenny Andersson is CNRS research professor at the Center for European Studies of Sciences po, Paris.

Egle Rindzeviciute is a researcher at the Center for European Studies of Sciences po, Paris, and Associate Professor in Culture Studies at Linköping University, Sweden.