The Young Flandry Trilogy As Future History

A future history presents society on, and usually also off, Earth in successive periods. Thus, for example, the central character of an earlier story is referred to as a historical or even a legendary figure in later stories. The history should also present different aspects of future society in any single period.

Young Flandry describes life on Terra, Starkad, Merseia, Irumclaw, Wayland, Talwin, Dido, Llanathawr, Shalmu and Aeneas. (That is a longer list than I expected.) In particular, when, in the second volume, A Circus Of Hells, Flandry walks between empty mansions in Irumclagian suburbs that:

"...lay like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the declining tide of empire..."
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 204,

- and is then closeted with aspiring vice boss, Leon Ammon, we really feel that we are being given a substantial picture of the late Terran Empire.