A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided therein.
Background
The term appears to have been coined by John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, in the February 1941 issue of that magazine, in reference to Robert A. Heinlein's Future History. Neil R. Jones is generally credited as the first author to create a future history.
A set of stories which share a backdrop but are not really concerned with the sequence of history in their universe are rarely considered future histories. For example, neither Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga nor George R. R. Martin's 1970s short stories which share a backdrop are generally considered future histories. Standalone stories which trace an arc of history are rarely considered future histories.
Earlier, some works were published which constituted "future history" in a more literal sense—i.e., stories or whole books purporting to be excerpts of a history book from the future and which are written in the form of a history book—i.e., having no personal protagonists but rather describing the development of nations and societies over decades and centuries.
Such works include:
Jack London's The Unparalleled Invasion (1914) describing a devastating war between an alliance of Western nations and China in 1975, ending with a complete genocide of the Chinese. It is described in a short footnote as "Excerpt from Walt Mervin's 'Certain Essays in History'. André Maurois's The War against the Moon (1928), where a band of well-meaning conspirators intend to avert a devastating world war by uniting humanity in hatred of a fictitious Lunar enemy only to find that the moon is truly inhabited and that they had unwittingly set off the first interplanetary war. This, too, is explicitly described as an excerpt from a future history book. The most ambitious of this subgenre is H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come (1933), written in the form of a history book published in the year 2106 and—in the manner of a real history book—containing numerous footnotes and references to the works of (mostly fictitious) prominent historians of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Notable future histories
Poul Anderson's two future histories: The Psychotechnic League and his later Technic History (see Nicholas van Rijn, Dominic Flandry) Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Galactic Empire and Robot series Stephen Baxter's two future histories: Xeelee Sequence, 1991–2018, and his Evolution short story collection James Blish's Cities in Flight Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth novels Frank Herbert's Dune universe Steve Jackson Games' role-playing game Transhuman Space Neil R. Jones's Professor Jameson series (1931–1989) Andrey Livadny's The History of the Galaxy series Lois Lowry's The Giver quartet Paul J. McAuley's Four Hundred Billion Stars series (1988) Larry Niven's Known Space Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series of novels, including The Mote in God's Eye H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future History Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe Clifford D. Simak's City stories Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men and Star Maker The Strugatsky brothers' Noon Universe Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series John Wyndham's The Outward Urge stories 2000 AD'''s Judge Dredd world Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale Matt Groening’s Futurama Difference from "alternate history" Unlike alternate history, where alternative outcomes are ascribed to past events, future history postulates certain outcomes to events in the writer's present and future.
The essential difference is that the writer of alternate history is in possession of knowledge of the actual outcome of a certain event, and that knowledge influences also the description of the event's alternate outcome. The writer of future history does not have such knowledge, such works being based on speculations and predictions current at the time of writing.
Future becoming past
The future projected in a "future history" can often turn out to be wildly inaccurate.