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Rating: 
Summary: An amazing example of older thought
Review: I read this book in its 1896 edition out of the Spencer Rare Books Library at the University of Kansas. As a history student, I found Colonel Astor's book a most amazing example of late nineteenth-century socio-economic thought. In the tradition of utopia novels, Astor creates a nineteenth-century version of the year 2000, in which all the problems of the world that he perceives in 1896 are fixed, and the thought process behind the industrial revolution has reached its apex. As a novel, "A Journey in Other Worlds" is probably not very good, but as a study in nineteenth-century frames of mind, ideas, and idealism, it is a most amazing primary source.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing example of older thought
Review: I read this book in its 1896 edition out of the Spencer Rare Books Library at the University of Kansas. As a history student, I found Colonel Astor's book a most amazing example of late nineteenth-century socio-economic thought. In the tradition of utopia novels, Astor creates a nineteenth-century version of the year 2000, in which all the problems of the world that he perceives in 1896 are fixed, and the thought process behind the industrial revolution has reached its apex. As a novel, "A Journey in Other Worlds" is probably not very good, but as a study in nineteenth-century frames of mind, ideas, and idealism, it is a most amazing primary source.
Rating: 
Summary: Compare to Bellamy's "Looking Backward"
Review: You may want to compare this to Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", which was published in the 1890s. Both books looked forward a hundred years to 2000. Each author gave his vision of the future. Astor imbues this book with a somewhat polemical slant. [As indeed did Bellamy in his.] The result is a book that may not be the most gripping of reading by current standards, but which still gives insight into a mindset of that era.The contrast between the two books is reflected in Astor being a successful inventor. No doubt this gave him a very rosy tinged worldview, unlike Bellamy's socialist leanings. And that is the value of these two books considered as a pair. One uses the dominant value system of its time, the agressive capitalism, and the other speaks forth from the resultant opposite. Interesting to see Steve Stirling edit this book. He has done good research for his science fiction novels, and perhaps that led him to this, long obscure text.
Rating:
Summary: Compare to Bellamy's "Looking Backward"
Review: You may want to compare this to Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", which was published in the 1890s. Both books looked forward a hundred years to 2000. Each author gave his vision of the future. Astor imbues this book with a somewhat polemical slant. [As indeed did Bellamy in his.] The result is a book that may not be the most gripping of reading by current standards, but which still gives insight into a mindset of that era. The contrast between the two books is reflected in Astor being a successful inventor. No doubt this gave him a very rosy tinged worldview, unlike Bellamy's socialist leanings. And that is the value of these two books considered as a pair. One uses the dominant value system of its time, the agressive capitalism, and the other speaks forth from the resultant opposite. Interesting to see Steve Stirling edit this book. He has done good research for his science fiction novels, and perhaps that led him to this, long obscure text.
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