[F]rom its very nature, and I am writing with the intimacy of one who has tried, fiction can never be satisfactory in this application [i.e., forecasting]. Fiction is necessarily concrete and definite; it permits of no open alternatives; its aim of illusion prevents a proper amplitude of demonstration, and modern prophecy should be, one submits, a branch of speculation, and should follow with all decorum the scientific method. The very form of fiction carries with it something of disavowal; indeed, very much of the Fiction of the Future pretty frankly abandons the prophetic altogether, and becomes polemical, cautionary, or idealistic, and a mere footnote and commentary to our present discontents. (1-2n)

I read this after A Modern Utopia, even though Anticipations was published first—and even though Modern Utopia is clearly an intellectual sequel to it, if not an actual one. This is because it was much easier to get a hold of A Modern Utopia (in print as part of the very comprehensive set of H. G. Wells Penguin Classics) than it was Anticipations (last reprinted, in a decent edition anyway, way back in 1999). I was grumpy and indignant upon realizing this. We might remember Wells now for his scientific romances, but those were just the first, brief phase of his career. The thing that made Wells who he was in his day was Anticipations; it launched him on a career of being a social prophet and a widely read public intellectual. Yet Penguin Classics reprinted The New Machiavelli and not this!?

Well, upon reading it, it quickly became obvious why they skipped over it. As my quotation above demonstrates, Wells did not consider this a work of fiction. Thus, it has dated quite badly in a way that most of his other work has not, not even fictionalized future histories like The Shape of Things to Come. Wells may have been following "the scientific method" in his prophecies, whatever that might mean, but though I think he was good at identifying what many of the key issues might be, he was pretty bad at identifying how they might actually play out. In the post-Trump era, his claim about demagogues looks pretty bad:

It is improbable that ever again will any flushed undignified man with a vast voice, a muscular face in incessant operation, collar crumpled, hair disordered, and arms in wild activity, talking, talking, talking, talking copiously out of the windows of railway carriages, talking on railway platforms, talking from hotel balconies, talking on tubs, barrels, scaffoldings, pulpits–tireless and undammable–rise to be the most powerful thing in any democratic state in the world. (89)

I mean, that one was pretty much disproved within a few decades by the rise of Hitler! (But even in 1934, Wells was insisting he'd got this one right.) The book is filled with stuff like that: Wells thinks all of England will be a suburb (27), and it will be filled with lovely houses, built to order (36); that a group of scientific men will detach themselves from society and run it on rational lines (81, 86, 98, 155); that the lower classes will no longer be recruited for the military (107); that French is most likely to become the international language (134-37); that all of Western Europe will become one state (136), and all of North America, plus Scandinavia, another (146). There are long, dull passages about what houses will look like.I mean, he's thinking about stuff no one else is really thinking about... but in a sense, he's not coming up with the right answers any more often than those who haven't thought about, even if he is asking the right questions. If you prophesy in the form of fiction, it doesn't matter if you get everything wrong, because fiction speaks to the reader no matter when they read it. No, The Sleeper Awakes did not come to pass, but I still get something out of it. But if this doesn't come to pass, there's little to get out of it.

Except, if like me, you need to know about science and morality in the long nineteenth century, because as always, Wells touches on everything. I read this book because of its discussion of the future eugenic state Sorry, but I have to quote at length to give you the full effect:

[T]he ethical system which will dominate the world state[ ] will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity–beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds, and a growing body of knowledge–and to check the procreation of base and servile types, of fear-driven and cowardly souls, of all that is mean and ugly and bestial in the souls, bodies, or habits of men. To do the latter is to do the former; the two things are inseparable. And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness, and cowardice and feebleness were saved from the accomplishment of their desires, the method that has only one alternative, the method that must in some cases still be called in to the help of man, is death. In the new vision death is no inexplicable horror, no pointless terminal terror to the miseries of life, it is the end of all the pain of life, the end of the bitterness of failure, the merciful obliteration of weak and silly and pointless things....
     The new ethics will hold life to be a privilege and a responsibility, not a sort of night refuge for base spirits out of the void; and the alternative in right conduct between living fully, beautifully, and efficiently will be to die. For a multitude of contemptible and silly creatures, fear-driven and helpless and useless, unhappy or hatefully happy in the midst of squalid dishonour, feeble, ugly, inefficient, born of unrestrained lusts, and increasing and multiplying through sheer incontinence and stupidity, the men of the New Republic will have little pity and less benevolence. (167-8)

Yikes.

The nicest thing you can say about all of this is that he was less racist than most people like this. He suggests that the New Republic won't exterminate nonwhites just because they are nonwhites, but that they'll just exterminate the worst of society, and thus let nonwhites prove themselves (177). And he does actually make fun of scientific racists at times (124). On the other hand, he makes the occasional anti-Semitic jab (41). It reads more like a dystopia than a utopia, and it always stings to see Wells—surely one of the smartest men of his time—get caught up in the very biocractic thinking he skewered in The War of the Worlds. A warning that many of us do not get smarter as we get older, I suppose.

Well's Anticipations published in 1902 was his first attempt to predict the future shape of the world. In his introduction he says that he has abandoned narrative fiction in favour of frank inquiries and arranged considerations; he aims to provide a rough sketch of the new millennium (the 20th century). The somewhat ponderous subtitle "the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought" is reflected in some ponderous early chapters, but the book comes to life with his predictions of the coming world wars and ends controversially with his ideas of an Utopian New Republic which will embrace eugenics and euthanasia. Anticipations was a best seller and Wells' thrilling and sometimes accurate predictions of the coming century launched him on a new career in the predictions business. However his ideas of a New Republic caused offense at the time and today read like nothing less than strong armed fascism.

Reading Anticipations today the reader cannot help but have a two column tick box in mind for those predictions that are fairly accurate and those that are wide of the mark; we might even have a third column of ideas that are either offensive and/or laughable. I will therefore list some of the highlights. He predicted that road transport would eclipse the railways and foresaw the motorway system as being the method to be used to move goods and services. His ideas on moving escalator like sidewalks that would have different speeds and use underground tunnels were more wide of the mark. He saw the diffusion of cities; ever spreading outwards with suburbs linked by an improved road system. He predicted the coming mechanised world war and the increasing professionalism of the soldierly, he said that trench warfare would be a living hell and saw the best supplied and mechanised army as being the one that would succeed. He saw further development in the use of accurate hand rifles and envisaged crack squads of highly mobile cyclist snipers as being battle winners. He predicted that supremacy in the air would win wars but over emphasised the importance of balloon warfare. He had a curious predilection for the use of ramming techniques for airplanes and ships in battle situations. He thought that America would lead the way in the world and that the English language centred in America would predominate. He saw the development of a more federal Europe, but Britain moving more towards America and the coming of three major power blocks: The America's, Europe and the East led by China.

Wells comes across as an impatient man. He fails to understand why others are not pushing forward towards a brighter more mechanised future. He gives an example of the processes used for house building lamenting at the time and laborious processes involved. Surely he says that some prefabrication techniques could be used. He also sees the duties of the servant classes not disappearing fast enough, the endless blacking of shoes, the clearing up after coal fires, the taking out of slops and the fetching of water. In this respect Well's descriptions of everyday life at the turn of the 19/20th century are fascinating and put into perspective his predictions for the future.

He takes a jaundiced view of the shaping of social elements and the business world, reserving particular spleen for the shareholder and speculator. He talks about the irresponsibility of the shareholding class, claiming that they "toil not neither do they spin". He sees the independent, irresponsible and wealthy share holder class still on the increase, but hopes that trust organised businesses organisms will develop and discover an essential unity of purpose. He also fears what he terms the abyss; a class of people left behind by the new wealth and the poor from the developing classes, but places his faith in the proportional development of educated and intelligent engineers and agriculturalist, doctors, schoolmasters, professional soldiers and intellectually active people of all sorts.

It is Well's vision of a New Republic; a sort of world wide movement that gives most cause for concern:

So it is I conceive the elements of a New Republic taking shape and running together through the social mass, picking themselves out more and more clearly, from the shareholder, the parasitic speculator and the wretched multitudes of the Abyss. The New Republic will constitute an informal and open freemasonary. In all sorts of ways they will be influencing and controlling the apparatus of the ostensible governments, they will be pruning irresponsible property, checking speculators and controlling the abyssward drift."

However Wells takes his ideas of the New Republic into totally unacceptable waters when he says:

The men of the New Republic will not be squeamish, either, in facing or inflicting death, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than we possess. They will have no superstitions about death. They will have an idea that will make killing worth the while...... They will naturally regard the modest suicide of incurably melancholy, or diseased or helpless persons as a high and courageous act of duty rather than a crime

Understandably Wells' ideas of a New Republic raised howls of protest from some of the critics, but Wells was a fast learner and soon ditched these ideas and within a couple of years he was an enthusiastic advocator of universal rights.

Reading Anticipations today is a bit of a curiosity and I suppose it will only be of interest to the H G Wells enthusiast, however apart from some turgid patches there is much to enjoy. Apart from the predictions there are some excellent descriptions of life at the very beginning of the 20th century and Wells can always spring a surprise with some added interest: for example his comparisons of English and French bookshops; he says that English bookshops with their gaudy reach-me-downs of gilded and embossed covers and horribly printed novels do not compare with the vibrancy of the display and produce on offer in their French counterparts. An uneven book and at times an offensive book, but more often progressive; just hear what he has to say about God, religion and sexuality and you can grasp an impatient man with a mind active and open towards a future that he looks forward to with some longing. A three star read. ( )