The Twentieth Century

Abstract

Even as breathtaking developments in science and technology seemed to place utopian dreams within touching distance, the twentieth century often felt more distant from utopia than ever. This chapter charts how utopian and (increasingly) dystopian literature responded to twentieth-century history. In the early twentieth century, social Darwinism became part of a narrative about embodiment that utopias and dystopias debated in relation to mass politics and totalitarianism. In the mid-century, dystopias cautioned about nuclear age terrors, while progressive anti-colonial and decolonization movements drew on utopian thought. By the 1970s, utopian texts were addressing limitations of the utopian tradition, and ecology became an important concern. The end of the Cold War saw a dystopian turn characterized by genre blending and postmodern strategies. Responding directly to historical events, utopian and dystopian fiction helped shape understandings of the twentieth century’s great upheavals.