The Year 3000

by Mantegazza, Paolo

• ISBN13: 9780803230323
• ISBN10: 080323032X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-01
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

First published in 1897,The Year 3000is the most daring and original work of fiction by the prominent Italian anthropologist Paolo Mantegazza. A futuristic utopian novel, the book follows two young lovers who, as they travel from Rome to the capital of the United Planetary States to celebrate their "mating union," encounter the marvels of cultural and scientific advances along the way. Intriguing in itself,The Year 3000is also remarkable for both its vision of the future (predicting an astonishing array of phenomena from airplanes, artificial intelligence, CAT scans, and credit cards to controversies surrounding divorce, abortion, and euthanasia) and the window it opens on fin de siecle Europe. Published here for the first time in English, this richly annotated edition features an invaluable introductory essay that interprets the intertextual and intercultural connections within and beyond Mantegazza's work. For its critical contribution to early science fiction and for its insights into the hopes, fears, and clash of values in the Western world of both Mantegazza's time and our own, this book belongs among the visionary giants of speculative literature.

Author Biography

Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910) was a prominent Italian neurologist, physiologist, anthropologist, defender and correspondent of Darwin, and fiction writer. Nicoletta Pireddu is the director of the comparative literature program and an associate professor of Italian and comparative literature at Georgetown University. She is the editor of Paolo Mantegazza’s Physiology of Love and Other Writings. David Jacobson translated Mantegazza’s Physiology of Love and Other Writings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Paolo Mantegazza, Fabulator of the Future	p. 1
Paolo and Maria set out for Andropolis. One evening in the Gulf of La Spezia.	p. 57
From La Spezia to the ancient pyramids of Egypt. From the pyramids to the Isle of Experiments. The Land of Equality. Tyrannopolis. Turatia or the Socialist Republic. Logopolis. Other governments and other social organizations.	p. 65
Voyage to the Isle of Dynamo, one of the four great laboratories of planetary force. The Historical Museum of our planet's mechanical evolution. The three great historical epochs. Macstrong's discovery and the pandynamo. The central distribution office of cosmic forces.	p. 81
Departure from Dynamo and arrival in Andropolis. The overall look of the city. Its houses, their construction and architecture. The plazas of Andropolis. The dynamics plant. The market. Arrest of a young thief, and justice meted out.	p. 90
Trip to the Government Palace. Forms of government and political organization around the world in the year 3000. The four wings of the Palace. Land, Health, School. Industry and Commerce. The Office of Finance.	p. 104
The Gymnasium of Andropolis.	p. 121
The Palace of Schools. The primary school. The middle school. The school of advanced studies. Lesson on the influence of passion on the logic of thought.	p. 125
Trip to Hygeia. The statue erected to the preeminent physicians of antiquity. The anteroom of the sick. The divisions of Hygeia. A lung doctor's visit to a tubercular patient. Card money in the year 3000. The Hygeians' department. Visit to newborns. Elimination of a baby. A mother both pitiful and cruel.	p. 132
The city of the dead at Andropolis. Dissolution of corpses. Cremation. The siderophiles and embalmings. Sepulchers. The Pantheon.	p. 146
The Theaters of Andropolis and the Panopticon. A listing of shows in the capital on April 26, 3000. A gala evening at the Panopticon.	p. 155
The Museum of Andropolis. The Arcade and the peripatetics. The natural science wing. Possible humans. Analysis paired with synthesis. The museum wing dedicated to human labor. Concentric circles and centrifugal radii. The blot on the art-history map.	p. 165
The City of God in Andropolis. The Temple of Hope. The church of the Evangelists. The Temple of the Unknown God.	p. 175
Maria's bad mood and Paolo's secret. A session of the Andropolis Academy and the awarding of the cosmic prize. Fertile marriage.	p. 184
Editor's Notes on the Text	p. 193
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