A History of the Future by James Howard Kunstler is the third installment in his dystopian series entitled World Made By Hand. The books are set in a future America after a total economic, environmental and political collapse has occurred a number of years ago. This particular book opens just as the residents of a small town in upstate New York called Union Grove are preparing to celebrate Christmas.

In this new world, electricity, computers and most modern conveniences are a thing of the past. Christmas is a time for family and loved ones to gather together and enjoy simple pleasures of music, food and friendship. On this stormy Christmas Eve a couple of events occur that will effect many of the townspeople. A shocking double murder sees a young mother taken into custody and many fear that justice will demand that she be hung. Also, a young man returns to the town after wandering America for the past two years. Although malnourished and exhausted, his story is bleak as there isn’t much left of America anymore with various factions forming their own countries that are in violent competition with each other. But all is not gloom and doom, we also read how people are learning to live a good but simple life in this new world, helping each other, sharing their supplies and appreciating their families.

These books have some pretty big flaws, the author’s viewpoint is one that I don’t very often agree with, his women characters are one-dimensional and there is a distinct lack of ethnic characters. But the author delivers the stories in a folksy, earnest tone and I appreciate that he gives the reader a sense of hope so I will be continuing on to the last book in this dystopian pioneer series. ( )

Third installment in the World Hade By Hand series, this one focuses on a murder and Robert's returned son Daniel. They're good story lines, but for me the parts that are Daniel telling his story quickly devolve into a huge chunki of exposition about what's going on in the rest of the world, and that part was much less interesting to me than the rest of the book, because it had so little to do with the rest of the story. Expect it will resurface in some form in the final book, but here it's a sideshow that threatens to derail the main story lines. ( )

A History of the Future by James Howard Kunstler is the highly recommended third book in the World Made by Hand series. These books are set in a future America after a complete economic, political, and cultural collapse has occurred. Epidemics have swept the land and the population has been decimated. In this world, those who are going to survive are forced to live literally by what they can do with their own hands and labor. It is sort of a dystopian pioneer setting - the simple life but in a changed, harsh world.

It is just before Christmas in the town of Union Grove in upstate New York. While there is no electricity, the town is doing what it can to decorate and celebrate a much simpler holiday, but perhaps one with more meaning after the catastrophes of previous years. The New Faith Covenant Brotherhood Church has opened a tavern, a pet project for Brother Jobe, which gives the townspeople a place to fellowship and helps bring a sense of a new normalcy returning to Union Grove. Andrew Pendergast is thriving. He has kept busy, and with his many varied interests, is actually doing quite well in this new world where self-sufficiency is the key.

But then the unthinkable happens - a double murder. It appears that Mandy Stokes, a woman whose sanity is truly in question, has murdered her child and husband on Christmas Eve. She needs to be locked up. The Brotherhood volunteers a place where this is possible and now the town must decide how to proceed. Is there a legal system intact to handle a murder trial? During the same time, Daniel Earle, the son of Mayor Robert Earle who left Union Grove at the end of the first book, World Made By Hand, has returned home. Emaciated, exhausted, and ill, Daniel needs a chance to recover, but even more important is the news he brings of the fractured outside world.

The series started with World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron. Although I have read World Made By Hand, I have not read the second book and had no problem following the story. It might behoove readers interested in this series to at least read World Made By Hand first.

Many of the same concerns I had with World Made By Hand continued with A History of the Future, with the exception of tying up the loose ends of the story. Naturally, if you are writing a series of books set in the same world, certain parts of the story and plot may continue on into the next novel, so that problem was neatly answered. The female characters continue to feel one dimensional and I still know that people around my part of the country could survive and thrive because they have a wealth of skills and knowledge that the people of Union Grove, NY, are somehow lacking. It is encouraging that the survivors are doing better and learning old/new-to-them skills.


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Grove/Atlantic for review purposes. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book about Union Grove. I need to go hunting for the second installment, which I seem to have missed!!! it's incredible to see how many things Kunstler brings together from the present way we live and has a look at what happens in a potential future after devastation. I love his descriptions---and the people are so visible in my mind, listening to the audio read by Jim Meskimen. I hope there are more books to come in this potential series but it takes quite an imagination---which Kunstler seems to have in abundance. ( )

The third installment of Kunstler's World Made by Hand series offers a wider view of calamities that befell the United States, as well as the narrower focus of the daily struggles of the residents of Union Grove as they continue to adjust to life with out electricity, automobiles and other modern comforts.

Daniel Earle, whose absence in the earlier novels is a source of great concern for his father, returns after two years away from home with news from outside of Washington County, New York.

Like the earlier books, I'm still not sure what to make of the super-natural stuff. That remains my biggest complaint in what is otherwise a fun extension of Kunstler's non-fiction The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere and the Long Emergency. ( )