The 1970s are currently one of the main areas of historiographical research. Debates revolve around the question as to whether the 1970s were marked by crisis perceptions and a fading of belief in progress. Yet there are only few case studies which scrutinise temporalities from the 1960s to the 1980s/90s. This is surprising, as interest in historical time studies has heavily intensified. This issue sheds light on temporal perspectives of politics in West Germany, Britain and the Soviet Union. The authors examine perceptions of time, temporal orders and visions of the future as well as planning experiences. The issue highlights that around 1970 notions of time and the future changed tremendously both in Western as well as in Eastern Europe. Notions of progress that hitherto had mainly been bound up with economic growth and technology came under fire. Yet there was no overall perception of crisis; instead, there were varying shades in a changing understanding of the future, and a crisis narrative which was partly used as a strategy to legitimise a call for radical change. At least in the West, the future did not disappear as a space that could be shaped by politics.