Article: Looking Backward, Looking Forward: 2023, 2024, Before and Beyond - In 1888, Edward Bellamy's forward-looking novel, Looking Backward 2000-1887, made a sensational impact in an American society reeling from the ravages of the Gilded Age's barbarous Capitalism and Social Darwinism. Bellamy's Boston of the futuristic year 2000 - as conveyed to us by time-traveler Julian West - gives us a utopian vision of universal justice, shared wealth, religious harmony, and global peace.