In the years between the world wars, French intellectuals, politicians, and military leaders came to see certain encounters-between human and machine, organic and artificial, national and international culture-as premonitions of a future that was alternately unsettling and utopian. Skyscrapers, airplanes, and gas masks were seen as traces in the present of a future world, its technologies, and its possible transformations. In Future Tense, Roxanne Panchasi illuminates both the anxieties and the hopes of a period when many French people-traumatized by what their country had already suffered-seemed determined to anticipate and shape the future.Future Tense, which features many compelling illustrations, depicts experts proposing the prosthetic enhancement of the nation's bodies and homes; architects discussing whether skyscrapers should be banned from Paris; military strategists creating a massive fortification network, the Maginot Line; and French delegates to the League of Nations declaring their opposition to the artificial international language Esperanto.Drawing on a wide range of sources, Panchasi explores representations of the body, the city, and territorial security, as well as changing understandings of a French civilization many believed to be threatened by Americanization. Panchasi makes clear that memories of the past-and even nostalgia for what might be lost in the future-were crucial features of the culture of anticipation that emerged in the interwar period.

Roxanne Panchasi's profile page

Roxanne Panchasi is Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University.

Roxanne Panchasi's masterful exposé on the uncertain times of l?entre-deux-guerres examines how French scientists, engineers, designers, military strategists, politicians, and writers conceived multiple scenarios to shape the France of the future.... From household appliances, prosthetic limbs, the chaise longue, Ovomaltine as a dietary supplement, and the grand design of the Ligne Maginot, the author has compiled an exhaustive and enlightening panorama of the ideas and inventions that informed the collective imagination of one nation determined to undo the ills of its past.

French Review

Investigating the impact of 'collective anticipation' on society, Panchasi successfully turns memory on its head, exploring how expectations of the future became manifested in public projects, ambitions and discourses during the interwar years.... This study is a solid and informative piece of work, which paints a vivid picture of the cultural and technological expectations facing interwar French society. Forcing the reader to reflect on the intersection between history and modernity during the interwar years, it offers a fresh approach to thinking about the exciting interwar period.

European History Quarterly