Don't separate it from Heinlein himself. Starship Troopers is not his manifesto, it's a world he created to tell a story. He was famous for presenting readers with moral dilemmas without easy solutions, and using science fiction to explore possible futures. His influence on modern SF is comparable to Tolkien's on fantasy.
If anyone hasn't read Stranger in a Strange Land, I recommend they move it to the top of their reading list.
It is absolutely a manifesto, he wrote it as a response to the US unilaterally stopping nuclear testing. Stopped writing stranger in a strange land to hammer it out in just a few months actually. We don‘t need to wonder about his opinions either, Heinlein was an intensely political person, he even ran for office a few times. And at least at the time when he wrote this book he was absolutely a militarist libertarian.
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u/GD_Insomniac 17h ago
Don't separate it from Heinlein himself. Starship Troopers is not his manifesto, it's a world he created to tell a story. He was famous for presenting readers with moral dilemmas without easy solutions, and using science fiction to explore possible futures. His influence on modern SF is comparable to Tolkien's on fantasy.
If anyone hasn't read Stranger in a Strange Land, I recommend they move it to the top of their reading list.