The Past Through Tomorrow
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The Past Through Tomorrow is a collection of Robert A. Heinlein's famed Future History stories.
The stories, for the most part, follow the same storyline of a rapidly collapsing American sanity, followed by a theocratic dictatorship (If This Goes On—) and the development of true civilization and justice, which is squelched in the last story (Methelusah's Children), forcing the pseudo-immortal Howard Families to flee Earth for their lives from the approaching mobs. In the very end, the Howards (led by recurring Heinlein character Lazarus Long) return to find that the rest of the species has discovered the secret to immortality.
Most editions include a timeline showing the chronology of the stories (including stories never written, such as "The Stone Pillow", which was to occur during the period of the theocracy), time of birth and death of the significant characters, and commentary by Heinlein.
The specific short stories included vary with the edition, but typically include:
- Life-Line, 1939, a month before Misfit. Doctor Pinero.
- Misfit, 1939
- The Roads Must Roll, 1940
- Requiem, 1940
- "If This Goes On—", 1940
- Coventry, 1940
- Blowups Happen, 1940
- Universe, 1941
- Methuselah's Children, 1941, extended and published as a novel, 1958
- Logic of Empire, 1941
- Space Jockey, 1947
- "It's Great to Be Back!", 1947
- The Green Hills of Earth, 1947
- Ordeal in Space, 1948
- The Long Watch, 1948
- Gentlemen, Be Seated!, 1948
- The Black Pits of Luna, 1948
- Delilah and the Space Rigger, 1949
- The Man Who Sold the Moon, 1951
- The Menace From Earth, 1957
- Searchlight, 1962
