Introduction

In the early 1880s Gabriel Tarde wrote a piece of futuristic fiction that was first published in 1896 under the title “Fragment of Future History,” and several years later translated into English as Underground Man, with a preface by H. G. Wells. The gist of the story is this: the sun is extinguished and most of humanity perishes. The survivors descend underground taking with them all the treasures of human art and knowledge. There they build a new and happy society, a kind of utopia.

Out of sensitivity to the particular literary context in which Tarde wrote this work, knowledgeable commentators sometimes call it “uchronia.” This neologism was first coined by Charles Renouvier in 1857. Whereas “utopia” literally means “no place,” “uchronia” accordingly means “no time.” The term is familiar today mainly to the fans of a very peculiar genre: alternative history. Renouvier's book (see Renouvier 1876) was indeed a piece of alternative history, telling us what course European history might have taken had the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius been succeeded, not by his son Commodus, but by Avidius Cassius. Tarde's text, however, is not about a nonactualized past but about a distant future. And dreams about an ideal society in such a future are generally called utopia.

But there is a more important issue: Is Tarde's text a genuine example of such a dream? Is it completely utopia or does it also include components of anti-utopia? Commentators differ on this question. Some consider Fragment to be a classical social utopia, pure and simple (e.g., Bouglé 1905). Others draw attention to more disconcerting aspects of the text, which include Tarde's supposedly critical description of the highly developed civilization prior to the catastrophe, which I will call “Babylon,” and the story of the cataclysm itself. The more radical among them even deny the character of utopia to the postcataclysm civilization, which I will call “Troglodyte,” finding in it much that is imperfect or even wrong.

My own view is that Fragment should be considered as a work of classical utopia. But in order to substantiate this interpretation one needs to go beyond those places in the text that praise the Troglodyte society. One should take note of the complexity of the Tardean story, which opens the way for rival interpretations.