Utopias and dystopias

• Marquis de Condorcet published his utopian vision of social progress and the perfectibility of man Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progres de l’Espirit Humain (The Future Progress of the Human Mind) in 1794
• William Godwin published his utopian work Enquiry concerning Political Justice in 1793, with later editions in 1796 and 1798.
• An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus in 1798 started the fears of a Malthusian catastrophe where overpopulation returns people to mere subsistence.
• Looking Backward: 2000-1887 was written by Edward Bellamy in 1888. The novel imagined that by 2000, the United States would be a socialist utopia, with far shorter work weeks for menial laborers and far greater leisure time for all workers. His novel predicted things such as skyscrapers, debit cards, and a device used to hear and view concerts in the home that resembles a modern television.
• The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968 predicted disasters due to Neo-Malthusian concerns.
• The Limits to Growth (1972, by Club of Rome) was often erroneously accused of predicting the inevitable exhaustion of natural resources.