In the same category are many of Turgenev’s books (Sketches remains my favourite) which were written contemporaneously with Russia’s abolition of serfdom. They areoptimistic yet bittersweet for modern readers privileged with hindsight of what was to come.

Similarly, Marinetti’s proclamations of an imminent techno-utopia (electricity will make crops grow faster and planes will make landowning irrelevant because we’ll live in the sky!) if we only give Italy an itty bitty bit of fascism should be required reading in Silicon Valley.