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When a diplomat dies in the 1930s, he leaves behind a book of 'dream visions' he has been experiencing, detailing events that will occur on Earth for the next two hundred years.
This fictional 'account of the future' (similar to LAST AND FIRST MEN by Olaf Stapledon) proved prescient in many ways, as Wells predicts events such as the Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare and climate change.
- Sales Rank: #189547 in Books
- Published on: 2011-04-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.13" h x 1.38" w x 5.38" l, 1.05 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 432 pages
About the Author
H.G. Wells was born in Bromley, Kent in 1866. After working as a draper's apprentice and pupil-teacher, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in 1884, studying under T. H. Huxley. It was with THE TIME MACHINE (1895) that he had his real breakthrough. Today he is regarded as one of the all-time greatest authors of science fiction.
Most helpful customer reviews
35 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting but flawed ideas from a visionary but embittered man
By H. Jin
With each passing year, H G Wells became more and more strident in advocating Socialism and the World State. And with every passing year, he became more and more embittered and pessimistic as his dreams went unrealised. Nowhere is this clearer than in `The Shape Of Things To Come', which despite discussing the "History of the Future" and making some startlingly accurate predictions, bears no resemblance to Wells' early scientific romances. There is some frame story in the form of Dr Philip Raven and his "dream of the future", but there's very little in the way of narration or storytelling in the traditional sense. `The Shape Of Things To Come' is essentially a very long and very serious essay representing Wells' most detailed outline of how a World State might be achieved.
In the first half, Wells begins by outlining the history of the immediate past and present (Book 1), and then-near future (Book 2) in the context of the development of a World State. This part of the book is very academic and can be quite heavy going at times. Certainly there is some interesting historical information here, presented in an unconventional context. But it is also very simplistic: the formation of a World State is portrayed as inevitable, the few people who advocated it are beatified as flawless visionaries, and everyone else dismissed as ignorant clods. It goes further than Victors' History; Wells is unrelentingly snarky and vindictive in savaging those who disagree with him.
Special mention must be made of Wells' predictions of the Second World War. While a number of his predictions were spot on (the date and location of its commencement), he gets it badly wrong in two ways. Firstly, he refuses to believe that re-armament and warfare can bring huge economic benefits (as WW2 did to the US and other countries), so does not accept that the world can lift itself out of its 1930's doldrums. This was a major flaw in Wells' logic, since his World State is based on the idea that countries and nationalism will disintegrate due to the unending Great Depression. Secondly, he blames the coming war solely on Poland and Western Europe, with poor defenceless little Germany the persecuted victim. While you can argue that Versailles was vindictive, and Wells could not have foreseen in 1933 what Germany would be like in 1939, Book 2 is nevertheless a deeply disturbing read. It's the history of the 1930's as it would have been written had the wrong side won the war.
The second half of the book (Books 3-5) deals with Wells' theories as to how the World State would be established from the ruins of Depression, war, and disease, and Book 5 describes the conditions World Citizens would live under. This section is generally more interesting and easier-going than the first half, and takes on a more personal and emotional element. The World State in 2105 certainly seems like a perfect place; however, once again Wells' passion overcomes his logic. If the World State is such an inevitable utopian paradise, why does it require a century or so of repressive military dictatorship (Book 4) to "convince" people to support it? Wells never resolves this fundamental contradiction, and in fact he tries to gloss over this a bit. He seems to regard with chilling indifference the persecution and enforced suicide of those who get in the way, and also `Nineteen Eighty Four' style re-interpretation of history and literature. Anything, literally anything, is acceptable if it furthers progress, and Wells doesn't seem to appreciate that four generations of humanity might not be happy to be enslaved under the Air Dictatorship just so he can have his Perfect World a hundred years' hence.
So in summary, `The Shape Of Things To Come' is a difficult book that doesn't necessarily reward you for the effort you're required to put in. There is no doubting Wells' imagination, and he has clearly thought in great detail about many specific aspects of the world in 2105. But he undermines his own arguments with logical gaps and flaws, and his partisan writing style does grate after a while. The book is an excellent insight into the aging and embittered Wells' mindset of the time, but be aware that it is a very challenging read that will not appeal to everybody.
28 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
H. G. Wells - Conspirator.
By New Age of Barbarism
_The Shape of Things to Come_ is the Penguin Classics edition of the novel first published in 1933 by the famous science fiction writer and British socialist H. G. Wells which provides an account of the "history of the future" and offers predictions as to what the future (at the time of writing) will bring. H. G. Wells envisioned this book in many ways to be a sequel to the historical work _The Outline of History_ (1930) which attempted to predict future developments taking off from where "history" left off. This book is particularly prescient and offered predictions for a Second World War and the creation of a "World State" and world government. As such, it is apparent that the thinking of individuals in the milieu of Wells had a profound influence on the thinking of the elite who operated behind the scenes in the Twentieth Century to erect a world government. H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946) was a British science fiction writer of world renown best known for his novels dealing with various scientific predictions and developments. However, there is another side to Wells. Wells also had an interest in politics and was an avid socialist, seeking to redress perceived social wrongs, who joined the Fabian society of socialists seeking "revolution" through gradualism for a time. Wells ardently believed in the ideals of socialism and world government as the answer to Nineteenth and early Twentieth century discrepancies in wealth. Wells was also an historian who was influenced heavily by Darwinian thinking and science. This novel which is really more of a political outline for a utopia than a real "novel", provides a vision of the World State achieved through co-operation among nations, as well as predicting various Twentieth century events including the Second World War. The "novel" is presented as the "dream book" left behind by one Dr. Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, who dies in 1930. This "dream book" reveals Raven's visions for the future of mankind and the creation of the World State. These visions are particularly prescient in light of the developments of the Twentieth century and the coming emergence of a worldwide government, and it is obvious that Wells was certainly no small visionary. As such, I believe this book is highly important and can be profitably read today to understand the events that have taken place in world politics during the Twentieth century and even into our own times.
The novel begins with an Introduction to "The Dream Book of Dr. Philip Raven". This introduction explains that Dr. Philip Raven was an intellectual working for the League of Nations who died in Geneva in 1930. Further, it is explained the means by which Dr. Philip Raven maintained contact with the future and through his visions was able to predict the coming World State. The introduction is supposed to be written by H. G. Wells himself who serves as the "transcriber" of Dr. Philip Raven's manuscripts. The novel then turns to "Book I: Today and Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration Dawns". The novel explains how following the First World War and the crippling Treaty of Versailles there arose the desire to put an end to war once and for all through means of an international overseeing body (which became the League of Nations). Further, the novel explains how economic crises led to various socialist proposals for alleviating poverty and resolving such economic downturns. Following this, the novel turns to "Book II: The Days After Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration". Here, the novel shows the development of economic theory through the London Conference as well as the rise of dictatorships and fascisms. The novel also explains how the old order was "sloughed off" and subsequently replaced by a new order based on world government. The novel also predicts the Second World War and shows the role of the Russian revolution and the theories of such economic theorists as Karl Marx and Henry George. Following this, the novel turns to "Book III: The World Renascence: The Birth of the Modern State". Here, the novel explains the plan of the modern World State, the development of the technocracy, and the role of a new "technical revolutionary" in the creation of the modern World State. Following this, the novel turns to "Book IV: The Modern State Militant". Here, the novel explains the rise of the World State and the Air Dictatorship. The novel explains such features of the "modern World State" as "futile insurrections" against it and predictions for the future. Following this, the novel turns to "Book V: The Modern State in Control of Life". This part of the novel discusses such topics as geogonic planning, changes in control of human behavior, the increase in lifespan and "wisdom" of the average man, and other topics as they relate to the "modern World State". The novel ends here by explaining that the World State has made possible a new development in the history of mankind devoted to socialism and cosmopolitanism.
This novel by H. G. Wells lays out an important blueprint for the history of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Wells' predictions are particularly prescient as they relate to the Second World War, the development of the League of Nations, the rise of socialism, and the creation of a global world state. Herein, H. G. Wells reveals himself to be a conspirator of the highest order whose utopian schemes were to be played out in the schemes of the elite in the coming ages. While this book is primarily meant to be a sequel to Wells' works on history, it lays out his coming plan and understanding of the new age. As such, this book reveals not only Wells as a primary thinker behind the goal of the New World Order but also as a powerful utopian dreamer and seer who predicted the coming age.
27 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
The Shape of Things to Come is not really a novel
By T. bailey
From Google Groups Jordan179:
The book was published in September 1933, which means that it was presumably written up to a year earlier. This is interesting in terms of _when_ its "present" was (the early years of the Great Depression, and right when Hitler had taken power in Germany). It is also interesting to note that this was around the same time as _Last and First Men_, and that Stapledon and Wells, as two British socialist literary science fiction writers, almost certainly would have known one another in person. I wonder if there was some sort of informal challenge in their circle to try to "write about the future," or something of that sort?
_The Shape of Things to Come_, of course, is a far less ambitious work than _Last and First Men_, in terms of scope. While LaFM covers two billion years of the history of not only our own species but its successors as dominant sapient races of the Solar System, TSoTtC covers only about a century (to the 2040's) in any sort of detail, and gives some vague hints of what happens out to 2100. This is roughly 110 to 166 years past the point of publication, corresponding to the very earliest parts of Stapledon's book in terms of timescale.
The framing story is that this is the "dream book" (recording of a series of dreams experienced by) of Dr. Phillip Raven, a progressive-minded statesman, influential in the League of Nations, who died in 1930. As becomes apparent to his friend (presumably H. G. Wells himself), the dreams were accurately prophetic (he foretells the election of FDR among other things), channelling a history book written in 2106, and so Wells decides to write them up into this history of the future.
I say "history of the future" rather than "novel" with precise meaning. Like _Last and First Men_, _The Shape of Things to Come_ is not really a novel: it has very little characterization and indeed few named characters engaging in anything like normal dialogue or plot. It's actually set up as if it really were a history of the last 200 years, writen in 2106 (as it claims to have been). The only places where it's dramatic is where one might expect a well-written, lively sort of history book to be so.
This of course ruins it as a novel, but then that's never what Wells was aiming at. He was aiming at a "future history," and as such this book really has more in common with works such as the _Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology_ than with science fiction _novels_ in general.
It's interesting to note that both TSoTtC, and LaFM, were written several years before the earliest story in Heinlein's famous "future history." I wonder if Heinlein read either book before coming up with _his_ notion of a "future history?" Wells was, of course, quite famous by the late 1930's / early 1940's, both as a fiction writer and a serious futurist.
The work is divided into five "books," each the length of a short history book. The first: "Today and Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration Dawns," is Wells' precis of the history of the world from roughly 1914-1933, as it might be seen from the viewpoint of his fictional 2106. It is, as one might expect, essentially socialist and pessimistic in view: Wells believed that Western Civilization had lost and was continuing to lose tremendous opportunities of education, production, and progress owing to what he saw as the pernicious effects of capitalism and superstition. He also had by this time lost almost all hope that the Soviet Union was going to turn out any better than Western Europe had. This part is somewhat amusing in terms of exposing Wells' own views, but is less than fascinating even viewed as history (and I like to read history). Wells himself would do this sort of thing _far_ better in his famous _Outline of History_.
The second book,"The Days After Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration," is essentially about the wreck of Civilization. Basically, the Great Depression (which he calls "the Slump") gets worse and worse. In 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt calls The London Conference in which all the nations of the world try to come to an agreement to end it: they fail miserably and the Depression continues to deepen.
(this follows logically from Wells' own socialist views: if the Depression was caused by the limitations of capitalism, obviously nothing short of a complete restructuring of the economy towards socialism could cure it).
(in our time line, of course, what happened was that the Depression partially lifted in 1934, and conditions gradually improved throughout the 1930's; finally, World War II caused governments everywhere to demand massive war production that put an end to it once and for all. Wells, embarassingly, was to see his theory proven false _within one year after the publication of the book_, which may be why there isn't any mention of a Depression On Steroids in the movie version).
Anyway, things get worse and worse, socially as well as economically. Production of whole classes of goods ceases (this is logically inconsistent with the structure of a Depression, but Wells isn't a very good economist). Crime and despair spread.
In 1940, the Germano-Polish War starts, by accident, over the Danzig Corridor. A Nazi shoots a Polish man at a train station, and Poland invades Germany and drives a good way into the Eastern part of the country before being stopped by German fortifications.
(this is the same year that "the Second World War" starts in the movie, but in the movie we never learn the cause of the war or even the identity of the foe)
Germany and Poland trade continual air raids while their ground armies are locked in stalemate on massive trench lines, including extensive poison gas and anti-tank obstacles ...
(continued on google groups)
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