The Past Through Tomorrow is a collection of Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...

's Future History

Future History

The Future History, by Robert A. Heinlein, describes a projected future of the human race from the middle of the 20th century through the early 23rd century. The term Future History was coined by John W. Campbell, Jr. in the February 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...

stories.

Most of the stories are part of a larger storyline of a rapidly collapsing American sanity, followed by a theocratic

Theocracy

Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

 dictatorship

Dictatorship

A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...

. A revolution overthrows the theocracy and establishes a free society which, nonetheless, does not save the pseudo-immortal Lazarus Long

Lazarus Long

Lazarus Long is a fictional character featured in a number of science fiction novels by Robert A. Heinlein. Born in 1912 in the third generation of a selective breeding experiment run by the Ira Howard Foundation, Lazarus becomes unusually long-lived, living well over two thousand years with the...

 and his Howard Families

Howard Families

The Howard Families are a fictional group created by the author Robert A. Heinlein.According to Heinlein, the Howard Foundation was started in the 19th century by Ira Howard, a millionaire dying of old age in his forties, for the purpose of extending human lifespans...

 from fleeing Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 for their lives. Most editions of the collection 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
  Life-Line
  "Life-Line" is a short story by American author Robert A. Heinlein. Published in 1939, it was Heinlein's first published short story.The protagonist, Professor Pinero, builds a machine that will predict how long a person will live. It does this by sending a signal along the world line of a...
  
  ", 1939; a month before "Misfit"
• "Misfit
  Misfit (short story)
  Misfit is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published in the November 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...
  
  ", 1939
• "The Roads Must Roll
  The Roads Must Roll
  "The Roads Must Roll" is a 1940 science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. In the late 1960s, it was awarded a retrospective Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America and published in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964 in 1970.The story is set in the near...
  
  ", 1940
• "Requiem
  Requiem (short story)
  "Requiem" is a short story by Robert A. Heinlein, serving as a sequel to his short science fiction novel, The Man Who Sold the Moon , although it was in fact published several years earlier than that story, in Astounding, January 1940...
  
  ", 1940
• "'If This Goes On—'", 1940
• "Coventry
  Coventry (short story)
  "Coventry" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein and part of his Future History series. It was collected into the book Revolt in 2100.-Plot summary:The protagonist, David MacKinnon, is a romantic idealist up for trial for assault...
  
  ", 1940
• "Blowups Happen
  Blowups Happen
  "Blowups Happen" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It is one of two stories in which Heinlein, using only public knowledge of nuclear fission, anticipated the actual development of nuclear technology a few years later...
  
  ", 1940
• "Universe
  Orphans of the Sky
  Orphans of the Sky is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, consisting of two parts: "Universe" and its sequel, "Common Sense" . The two novellas were first published together in book form in 1963. "Universe" was also published separately in 1951 as a 10¢ Dell paperback...
  
  ", 1941
• "Methuselah's Children
  Methuselah's Children
  Methuselah's Children is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in the July, August, and September 1941 issues. It was expanded into a full-length novel in 1958....
  
  ", 1941; extended and published as a novel, 1958
• "Logic of Empire
  Logic of Empire
  "Logic of Empire" is a science fiction novella by Robert A. Heinlein. Part of his Future History series, it originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction , and was collected in The Green Hills of Earth .Two well-off Earth men are arguing about whether there is slavery on Venus, and one of them...
  
  ", 1941
• "'—We Also Walk Dogs'", 1941
• "Space Jockey
  Space Jockey (short story)
  "Space Jockey" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. Part of his Future History series, it originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, April 26, 1947, and was collected in The Green Hills of Earth .The story is set in the near future...
  
  ", 1947
• "'It's Great to Be Back!
  It's Great to Be Back!
  "It's Great to Be Back!" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. One of his Future History stories, it was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in the July 26, 1947 issue and later reprinted in The Green Hills of Earth ..A physical chemist and his wife , who have been in...
  
  '", 1947
• "The Green Hills of Earth
  The Green Hills of Earth
  "The Green Hills of Earth" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, and the title of a song, "The Green Hills of Earth", mentioned in several of his novels...
  
  ", 1947
• "Ordeal in Space
  Ordeal in Space
  "Ordeal in Space" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, originally published in Town & Country, May 1948. It is one of Heinlein's Future History stories and appears in his collection, The Green Hills of Earth....
  
  ", 1948
• "The Long Watch
  The Long Watch
  "The Long Watch" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It is about a military officer who faces a coup d'état by a would-be dictator....
  
  ", 1948
• "Gentlemen, Be Seated!
  Gentlemen, Be Seated!
  "Gentlemen, Be Seated!" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published in the May 1948 issue of Argosy magazine...
  
  ", 1948
• "The Black Pits of Luna
  The Black Pits of Luna
  "The Black Pits of Luna" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein about a Boy Scout on a trip to the moon and his novel way of finding his lost brother...
  
  ", 1948
• "Delilah and the Space Rigger
  Delilah and the Space Rigger
  "Delilah and the Space Rigger", a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, is one of his most explicitly feminist-themed short stories...
  
  ", 1949
• "The Man Who Sold the Moon
  The Man Who Sold the Moon
  The Man Who Sold the Moon is a science fiction novella by Robert A. Heinlein written in 1949 and published in 1950. A part of his Future History and prequel to "Requiem", it covers events around a fictional first Moon landing, in 1978, and the schemes of Delos D...
  
  ", 1950
• "The Menace From Earth
  The Menace From Earth
  "The Menace From Earth" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein, first published in 1957.-Plot summary:The "menace" of the title is a beautiful woman tourist who visits the Moon colony and is assigned a young guide named Holly, a 15 year old girl and aspiring starship designer who is...
  
  ", 1957
• "Searchlight
  Searchlight (short story)
  "Searchlight" is a very short science fiction story by Robert A. Heinlein about a little blind girl whose spaceship crashes on the Moon. The search for her takes advantage of her prodigious musical ability to locate her....
  
  ", 1962

Reception

Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names "Frank Mason", "Alger Rome", "John A. Sentry", "William Scarff", and "Paul Janvier."-Biography:...

hailed the collection as "some of the finest writing [science fiction] has ever known," describing it as "a magnificent compendium, coincidentally a rewarding and perhaps accurate cross-section of a writer's career."