About Past & Future

Past & Future is an independent, free, educational and publishing resource. It is a successor to the earlier www.international-relations.com site, but now incorporates historical, futurist and literary explorations. The site is updated regularly with new articles, essays, books and useful links.​ It was created and is run by Dr R. James Ferguson.

 

R. James Ferguson, also writing under the pen-names Ron Ferguson and James Ferguson, has published short stories in Australian magazines (Omega, Aphelion, and MJ) as well as several novels: Have Future, Will Travel, Cartesian Overthrow: Beyond First Contact, Baroque Space and the Lifeverse, and Death in Sumer (with Holand Press, 2026), all available via Amazon. He has worked in libraries, been a guitar teacher, and then a systems-analyst before returning to academic studies. He has a PhD focused on the Hellenistic Age, taught history and international relations at Bond University (Australia), and was the Director of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies. He has written, edited or co-authored numerous non-fiction works (including The Politics and Philosophy of Chinese Power: The Timeless and the Timely, China’s Eurasian Dilemmas: Roads and Risks for a Sustainable Global Power, Greening China’s New Silk Roads: Sustainable Governance of Belt and Road, and Living Confucianisms: Strategies for Optimizing Harmony). He has a life-long interest in the literature, mentalities and world views of diverse cultures, ancient and modern, past, present and future.