Editing Fahrenheit 451 (section)

==Predictions for the future==

''Fahrenheit 451'' is set in an unspecified city and time, though it is written as if set in a distant future.<ref name=":0" group="note" /><ref name=":0">{{cite book |author=Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnuYKJSoHCMC&q=%22Fahrenheit+451+is+not+set+in+any+specific+locale%22&pg=PA78 |title=Dictionary of Midwestern Literature |date=2001 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=9780253336095 |editor-last=Greasley |editor-first=Philip A. |volume=1, The Authors |page=78 |quote=''Fahrenheit 451'' is not set in any specific locale... |access-date=March 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930174911/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnuYKJSoHCMC&q=%22Fahrenheit+451+is+not+set+in+any+specific+locale%22&pg=PA78 |archive-date=September 30, 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> The earliest editions make clear that it takes place no earlier than the year 2022 due to a reference to an atomic war taking place during that year.<ref group="note">In early editions of the book, Montag says, "We've started and won two [[Nuclear warfare|atomic wars]] since 1960", in the first pages of ''The Sieve and the Sand''. This sets a lower bound on the time setting. In later decades, some editions have changed this year to 1990 or 2022.</ref><ref name="reid_p59_1">{{cite book |last=Reid |first=Robin Anne |title=Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-313-30901-9 |series=Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers |location=Westport, CT |page=53 |quote=''Fahrenheit 451'' is set in an unnamed city in the United States, possibly in the Midwest, in some undated future.}}</ref>

Bradbury described himself as "a ''preventer'' of futures, not a predictor of them."<ref name="aggelis_p99">{{cite book|editor-last=Aggelis|editor-first=Steven L.|others=Interview by Shel Dorf|title=Conversations with Ray Bradbury|year=2004|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|location=Jackson, MS|isbn=1-57806-640-9|page=99|quote=I am a ''preventor'' of futures, not a predictor of them. I wrote ''Fahrenheit 451'' to prevent book-burnings, not to induce that future into happening, or even to say that it was inevitable.}}</ref> He did not believe that book burning was an inevitable part of the future; he wanted to warn against its development.<ref name="aggelis_p99" /> In a later interview, when asked if he believes that teaching ''Fahrenheit 451'' in schools will prevent his totalitarian<ref name="gerall" /> vision of the future, Bradbury replied in the negative. Rather, he states that education must be at the kindergarten and first-grade level. If students are unable to read then, they will be unable to read ''Fahrenheit 451''.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Aggelis|editor-first=Steven L.|title=Conversations with Ray Bradbury|year=2004|publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]]|location=Jackson, MS|isbn=1-57806-640-9|page=189}}</ref>

As to technology, Sam Weller notes that Bradbury "predicted everything from flat-panel televisions to earbud headphones and twenty-four-hour banking machines."<ref>{{cite book|last=Weller|first=Sam|author-link=Sam Weller (journalist)|title=Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews|year=2010|publisher=Melville House|location=Brooklyn, NY|page=263|isbn=978-1935554035|url=https://archive.org/details/listentoechoesra0000well/page/n1/mode/2up}}</ref>