This original collection explores a number of significant texts produced in 1944 that define that year as a textual turning point when overlapping and diverging visions of a new world emerged. The questions posed at that moment, about capitalism, race, empire, nation and cultural modernity gave rise to debates that defined the global politics of their era and continue to delineate our own. Highlighting the goals, agendas and priorities that emerged for artists, intellectuals and politicians in 1944, Reading the Postwar Future rethinks the intellectual history of the 20th century and the way 1944's texts shaped the contours of the postwar world. This is essential reading for any student or scholar of the intellectual, political, economic and cultural history of the postwar era. Engaging a diverse array of texts published in 1944, the essays in this volume convincingly make the case for the ways that the looming end of World War II and the as yet undecided character of the new world order engendered competing and expansive visions of the postwar future. As the institutional settlements of 1945 are fracturing, Reading the Postwar Future will be an indispensable guide to our own predicaments.