The world of 1907 is poised between the old and the new: communist regimes will replace imperial ones in China and Russia; the telegraph is transforming modern communication and the car will soon displace the horse. Kassia St Clair traces the fascinating stories of two interlocking races – setting the derring-do (and sometimes cheating) of one of the world’s first car races against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological rush to the future, as the rivalry grows between countries and empires, building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything – the First World War. ‘The Race to the Future’ is the incredible true story of the quest against the odds that shaped the world we live in today.