The Shape of Things to Come
Encyclopedia
The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction
by H. G. Wells
, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state
as the solution to mankind's problems.
, Wells claims that the book is his edited version of notes written by an eminent diplomat, Dr. Philip Raven, who had been having dream visions of a history textbook published in 2106, and wrote down what he could remember of it. It is split into five separate sections or "books":
Wells predicted a Second World War
breaking out with a European conflagration from the flashpoint of a violent clash between Germans and Poles at Danzig. Wells set the date for this as January 1940.
Poland proves the military match of Nazi Germany and engages in an inconclusive war lasting ten years. More countries are eventually dragged into the fighting, France and the Soviet Union are only marginally involved, Britain remains neutral, the US fights inconclusively with Japan.
The war drags on until 1950 and ends with no victor but total exhaustion, collapse and disintegration of all fighting states (and also of the neutral countries, equally affected by the deepening economic crisis). Europe and the whole world descend into chaos: nearly all central governments break down, and a devastating plague in 1956-57 kills a large part of humanity and almost destroys civilization.
Wells then envisages a benevolent dictatorship
—'The Dictatorship of the Air' (a term likely modelled on 'The Dictatorship of the proletariat
')—arising from the controllers of the world's surviving transportation systems (the only people with global power). This dictatorship promotes science, enforces Basic English
as a global lingua franca
, and eradicates all religion, setting the world on the route to a peaceful utopia
. When the dictatorship chooses to murder a subject, the condemned person is given a chance to take a poison tablet.
Eventually, after a century of reshaping humanity, the dictatorship is overthrown in a completely bloodless coup, the former rulers are sent into a very honourable retirement, and the world state "withers away" (as was predicted by Friedrich Engels
in his 1877 work Anti-Duhring
). The last part of the book is a detailed description of the Utopian world which emerges, in some ways reminiscent of Edward Bellamy
's Looking Backward
. The ultimate aim of this utopian world is to produce a world society composed entirely of polymath
s, each and every one of its members the intellectual equal of the greatest geniuses of the past.
As noted by Neville , while The Shape of Things to Come was written as a future history
, seen in retrospect it can be considered as an alternate history diverging from ours in late 1933 or early 1934, the Point of divergence
being U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's failure to implement the New Deal
and revive the US economy (and also Adolf Hitler
's failure to revive the German economy by re-armament). Instead, the worldwide economic crisis continues for three decades, concurrently with the war. The war is prosecuted by countries already on the verge of collapse and ends, not with any side's victory, but with universal collapse and disintegration (including non-combatant countries). There follows the complete collapse of capitalism and the emergence of the above-mentioned new order.
The book displays one of the earliest uses of the C.E. (Christian Era or Common Era
) calendar abbreviation, which was used by Wells in lieu of the traditional A.D. (Latin Anno Domini
).
, which was to assume a crucial role in the Cold War
period. Though the warheads of what he termed "long-range air torpedoes with directional apparatus" were envisaged as chemical rather than nuclear, Wells grasped the strategic implications of combining submarines with weapons of mass destruction
:
"The smallest of these raiders carried enough of such stuff to 'prepare' about eight hundred square miles of territory. Completely successful, it could have turned most of the London or New York of that time, after some clamour and running and writhing and choking, into a cityful of distorted corpses. These vessels made London vulnerable from Japan, Tokyo vulnerable from Dublin; they abolished the last corners of safety in the world."
As well as predicting this application of submarines, Wells correctly predicted that these weapons would not be fully utilised and would be mainly used to create deterrence between the various powers holding them.
restored the party's fortunes — credited the effective guerrilla campaign mainly to Chiang Kai-shek
's Nationalist Chinese, with the Communists playing only a marginal role. The Communists do become prominent in both China and Japan in later stages, during the worldwide chaos, but they fail to establish an effective central government in either country and are eventually swept away by the emerging Modern State.
of World War II, with only a single indecisive naval battle (Japanese forces try to bar US ships from sailing to Manila
, the Americans break through but fail to destroy the Japanese forces). There is no island-hopping and no fighting on land, and the war — which precedes rather than follows the outbreak of war in Europe — is broken off with the two sides exhausted, Japan from its war in China and the US from the 1929 economic crisis which Roosevelt failed to resolve.
While air power is a major theme of the book as a whole, Wells failed to anticipate its impact on naval warfare and the decisive role which aircraft carriers would play in the Battle of Midway
. Rather, in his prediction the naval battle is still fought by the ships' artillery, as in the Battle of Jutland
.
was politically isolated, and his career at its nadir
. Wells clearly assumed that he was not destined to perform any further noteworthy deeds, and that his reputation in posterity would rest mainly on his role as First Lord of the Admiralty in World War I
and on the history of that war which Churchill wrote and of which Wells provided in the book a rather facetious review. However, his son Randolph Churchill
is briefly mentioned as one of several distinguished Britons taking part in a vain effort to mediate an end to the war (in which Britain does not participate) and delivering "brilliant pacific speeches" at a conference in Vevey
, which "echo throughout Europe" but fail to end the war (The other would-be peacemakers, in Wells's vision, included Hore Belisha, Ellen Wilkinson
and Duff Cooper
.)
The destruction of Islam
is carried out by the Air Police, who "descend upon Mecca
and close down the main holy places", apparently without major incident. Eventually, Islam disappears, its demise accelerated by the decay of Arabic and its replacement by "an expanded English". Some twenty mosques survive, deemed to be worthy of preservation on architectural grounds.
There is only a single mention of Buddhism's
abolition, and no reference to any serious problem encountered by the Modern State in eradicating it from East Asia
.
The most prolonged and formidable religious opposition envisaged by Wells is from the Catholic Church (there is little reference to Protestants). The Pope
and entire Catholic hierarchy are gassed unconscious when blessing the new airplanes built by a revived Fascist Italy
. After the Catholic Church is decisively crushed in Italy, it finds refuge in Ireland
, "the last bastion of Christianity" which becomes a Catholic theocracy. Ireland is also subdued, after which limited Catholic resistance is maintained in Latin America
, under "a coloured Pope in Pernambuco
"—but it, too, is finally put down.
Wells gives considerable attention to the fate of the Jews. In this history, the enfeebled Nazi Germany
is incapable of systematic murder on the scale of the Holocaust. However, Jews greatly suffer from "unorganized" persecution, and there is a reference to anti-Jewish pogrom
s happening "everywhere in Europe" during the chaotic 1950's. And in a world where all nation-states were a doomed anachronism, Zionism
and its ambition to create a new such state obviously came to naught.
In the later struggle between the emerging world state and its opponents, Jews are seen as caught between the hammer and the anvil. Following the launch of its anti-religious campaign, the Modern State closes down all kosher butcheries still in operation - while the opening act of the "Federated Nationalist" rebels opposing this state is to perpetrate a pogrom against Jews in the Frankfurt area. Eventually, in Wells's vision, it is the Modern State's forced assimilation which wins out and the Jews—who had resisted earlier such pressures—become completely absorbed in the general society and lose their separate identity.
(A.B.C.) in the short stories "With the Night Mail" and "Easy as A.B.C.", by Rudyard Kipling
, with which Wells was certainly familiar. The Kipling stories are set in a post-apocalyptic world where airships are commonly used both for freight and passenger service, as well as for preventing civil unrest through use of powerful sonic weapons:
The above description, from Kipling's "With the Night Mail", seems very applicable to the worldwide institution depicted by Wells. However, Kipling's stories contain dystopian elements.
Wells's book might have also been influenced by George Griffith
's 1893
The Angel of the Revolution
in which a band of revolutionaries known as 'The Brotherhood of Freedom' masters the technology of flight and eventually establishes a pax aeronautica over the earth.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state
World government
World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
as the solution to mankind's problems.
Plot
As a frame storyFrame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
, Wells claims that the book is his edited version of notes written by an eminent diplomat, Dr. Philip Raven, who had been having dream visions of a history textbook published in 2106, and wrote down what he could remember of it. It is split into five separate sections or "books":
- Today And Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration Dawns - The history of the world up to 1933.
- The Days After Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration - 1933-1960.
- The World Renascence: The Birth of the Modern State - 1960-1978.
- The Modern State Militant - 1978-2059.
- The Modern State in Control of Life - 2059 to New Year's Day 2106.
Wells predicted a Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
breaking out with a European conflagration from the flashpoint of a violent clash between Germans and Poles at Danzig. Wells set the date for this as January 1940.
Poland proves the military match of Nazi Germany and engages in an inconclusive war lasting ten years. More countries are eventually dragged into the fighting, France and the Soviet Union are only marginally involved, Britain remains neutral, the US fights inconclusively with Japan.
The war drags on until 1950 and ends with no victor but total exhaustion, collapse and disintegration of all fighting states (and also of the neutral countries, equally affected by the deepening economic crisis). Europe and the whole world descend into chaos: nearly all central governments break down, and a devastating plague in 1956-57 kills a large part of humanity and almost destroys civilization.
Wells then envisages a benevolent dictatorship
Benevolent dictatorship
Benevolent dictatorship is a form of government in which an authoritarian leader exercises political power for the benefit of the whole population rather than exclusively for his or her own self-interest or benefit or for the benefit of only a small portion of the population...
—'The Dictatorship of the Air' (a term likely modelled on 'The Dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
')—arising from the controllers of the world's surviving transportation systems (the only people with global power). This dictatorship promotes science, enforces Basic English
Basic English
Basic English, also known as Simple English, is an English-based controlled language created by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a Second Language...
as a global lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
, and eradicates all religion, setting the world on the route to a peaceful utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
. When the dictatorship chooses to murder a subject, the condemned person is given a chance to take a poison tablet.
Eventually, after a century of reshaping humanity, the dictatorship is overthrown in a completely bloodless coup, the former rulers are sent into a very honourable retirement, and the world state "withers away" (as was predicted by Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
in his 1877 work Anti-Duhring
Anti-Dühring
Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, commonly known as Anti-Dühring, is a book written in German by Friedrich Engels, published in 1878. It had previously been serialised in a periodical. There were two further editions in German in the lifetime of Engels...
). The last part of the book is a detailed description of the Utopian world which emerges, in some ways reminiscent of Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000. He was a very influential writer during the Gilded Age of United States history.-Early life:...
's Looking Backward
Looking Backward
Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from western Massachusetts; it was first published in 1887...
. The ultimate aim of this utopian world is to produce a world society composed entirely of polymath
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
s, each and every one of its members the intellectual equal of the greatest geniuses of the past.
As noted by Neville , while The Shape of Things to Come was written as a future history
Future history
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
, seen in retrospect it can be considered as an alternate history diverging from ours in late 1933 or early 1934, the Point of divergence
Point of divergence
In discussion of counterfactual history, a divergence point , also referred to as a departure point or point of divergence , is a historical event with two possible postulated outcomes...
being U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's failure to implement the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and revive the US economy (and also Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's failure to revive the German economy by re-armament). Instead, the worldwide economic crisis continues for three decades, concurrently with the war. The war is prosecuted by countries already on the verge of collapse and ends, not with any side's victory, but with universal collapse and disintegration (including non-combatant countries). There follows the complete collapse of capitalism and the emergence of the above-mentioned new order.
The book displays one of the earliest uses of the C.E. (Christian Era or Common Era
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
) calendar abbreviation, which was used by Wells in lieu of the traditional A.D. (Latin Anno Domini
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
).
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles
Wells's book can be credited with an accurate prediction of the submarine launched ballistic missileSubmarine-launched ballistic missile
A submarine-launched ballistic missile is a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead that can be launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles each of which carries a warhead and allows a single launched missile to...
, which was to assume a crucial role in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
period. Though the warheads of what he termed "long-range air torpedoes with directional apparatus" were envisaged as chemical rather than nuclear, Wells grasped the strategic implications of combining submarines with weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
:
"The smallest of these raiders carried enough of such stuff to 'prepare' about eight hundred square miles of territory. Completely successful, it could have turned most of the London or New York of that time, after some clamour and running and writhing and choking, into a cityful of distorted corpses. These vessels made London vulnerable from Japan, Tokyo vulnerable from Dublin; they abolished the last corners of safety in the world."
As well as predicting this application of submarines, Wells correctly predicted that these weapons would not be fully utilised and would be mainly used to create deterrence between the various powers holding them.
Japan and China
The book predicted that Japan would fail in its efforts to conquer China, and get bogged down and exhausted in an effective guerrilla campaign launched by the Chinese. However, Wells — writing after the Chinese Communist Party suffered a crushing blow at the Shanghai Massacre and before Mao's Long MarchLong March
The Long March was a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south...
restored the party's fortunes — credited the effective guerrilla campaign mainly to Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
's Nationalist Chinese, with the Communists playing only a marginal role. The Communists do become prominent in both China and Japan in later stages, during the worldwide chaos, but they fail to establish an effective central government in either country and are eventually swept away by the emerging Modern State.
The Pacific War
Wells's scenario did include a war between Japan and the US, but a far more limited one than the actual Pacific WarPacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
of World War II, with only a single indecisive naval battle (Japanese forces try to bar US ships from sailing to Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, the Americans break through but fail to destroy the Japanese forces). There is no island-hopping and no fighting on land, and the war — which precedes rather than follows the outbreak of war in Europe — is broken off with the two sides exhausted, Japan from its war in China and the US from the 1929 economic crisis which Roosevelt failed to resolve.
While air power is a major theme of the book as a whole, Wells failed to anticipate its impact on naval warfare and the decisive role which aircraft carriers would play in the Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
. Rather, in his prediction the naval battle is still fought by the ships' artillery, as in the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
.
Role of Winston Churchill
The book was written when Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
was politically isolated, and his career at its nadir
Nadir
The nadir is the direction pointing directly below a particular location; that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface there. Since the concept of being below is itself somewhat vague, scientists define the nadir in more rigorous...
. Wells clearly assumed that he was not destined to perform any further noteworthy deeds, and that his reputation in posterity would rest mainly on his role as First Lord of the Admiralty in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and on the history of that war which Churchill wrote and of which Wells provided in the book a rather facetious review. However, his son Randolph Churchill
Randolph Churchill
Major Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill, MBE was the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Preston from 1940 to 1945....
is briefly mentioned as one of several distinguished Britons taking part in a vain effort to mediate an end to the war (in which Britain does not participate) and delivering "brilliant pacific speeches" at a conference in Vevey
Vevey
Vevey is a town in Switzerland in the canton Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne.It was the seat of the district of the same name until 2006, and is now part of the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District...
, which "echo throughout Europe" but fail to end the war (The other would-be peacemakers, in Wells's vision, included Hore Belisha, Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson was the Labour Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough and later for Jarrow on Tyneside. She was one of the first women in Britain to be elected as a Member of Parliament .- History :...
and Duff Cooper
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG, DSO, PC , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, and a biography of Talleyrand...
.)
World Encyclopædia Establishment
The book described a World Encyclopædia Establishment, founded in 2012. This, along with the Central Observation Bureau, a 'complex organization of discussion, calculation, criticism and forecast' and the Record and Library Network, were created by the Air Dictatorship.Suppression of religions
One of the major aspects in the creation of the World State envisioned by Wells is the complete crushing and eradication of all organized religion—an act deemed indispensable in order to give the emerging "Modern State" a monopoly over education and the complete ability to mould new generations of humanity worldwide into the required shape.The destruction of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
is carried out by the Air Police, who "descend upon Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
and close down the main holy places", apparently without major incident. Eventually, Islam disappears, its demise accelerated by the decay of Arabic and its replacement by "an expanded English". Some twenty mosques survive, deemed to be worthy of preservation on architectural grounds.
There is only a single mention of Buddhism's
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
abolition, and no reference to any serious problem encountered by the Modern State in eradicating it from East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
.
The most prolonged and formidable religious opposition envisaged by Wells is from the Catholic Church (there is little reference to Protestants). The Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
and entire Catholic hierarchy are gassed unconscious when blessing the new airplanes built by a revived Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
. After the Catholic Church is decisively crushed in Italy, it finds refuge in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, "the last bastion of Christianity" which becomes a Catholic theocracy. Ireland is also subdued, after which limited Catholic resistance is maintained in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, under "a coloured Pope in Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
"—but it, too, is finally put down.
Wells gives considerable attention to the fate of the Jews. In this history, the enfeebled Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
is incapable of systematic murder on the scale of the Holocaust. However, Jews greatly suffer from "unorganized" persecution, and there is a reference to anti-Jewish pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s happening "everywhere in Europe" during the chaotic 1950's. And in a world where all nation-states were a doomed anachronism, Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and its ambition to create a new such state obviously came to naught.
In the later struggle between the emerging world state and its opponents, Jews are seen as caught between the hammer and the anvil. Following the launch of its anti-religious campaign, the Modern State closes down all kosher butcheries still in operation - while the opening act of the "Federated Nationalist" rebels opposing this state is to perpetrate a pogrom against Jews in the Frankfurt area. Eventually, in Wells's vision, it is the Modern State's forced assimilation which wins out and the Jews—who had resisted earlier such pressures—become completely absorbed in the general society and lose their separate identity.
Film adaptations
There have been two film adaptations of the novel.- Things to ComeThings to ComeThings to Come is a British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come and his 1931 non-fiction work, The Work, Wealth and Happiness...
, a 1936 film with a screenplay by Wells himself. - H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to ComeH. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to ComeH. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come is a Canadian science fiction motion picture first released in May 1979.Although credited to H. G. Wells, the film takes only its title and some character names from The Shape of Things to Come, Wells' speculative novel from 1933. The plot bears no...
, a 1979 science-fiction film not at all based on the book.
In other media
- "The Shape of Things to Come" is the title of a track in the Battlestar Galactica Season One Soundtrack composed by Bear McCrearyBear McCrearyBear McCreary is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.-Biography:...
. - An episode of the television series LostLost (TV series)Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
is titled "The Shape of Things to ComeThe Shape of Things to Come (Lost)"The Shape of Things to Come" is the 81st episode of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost and is the ninth episode of the fourth season. It aired on April 24, 2008 on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada. The episode was written by co-executive producer Drew Goddard and...
". One of the main settings in the episode is Iraq, similar to the novel. - "The Shape of Things to Come" is the last track on the Powerman 5000Powerman 5000Powerman 5000 is an American Metal band formed in 1991. Through the span of over two decades, the group has released several albums and gained their highest commercial success with 1999's science fiction themed Tonight the Stars Revolt!...
album, Transform.
The Kipling connection
Wells's "Air and Sea Control", the association of pilots and technicians which controls the world's communications and eventually develops into a world government, seems a clear literary descendant of an institution called the Aerial Board of ControlAerial Board of Control
The Aerial Board of Control is a fictional supranational organization created to manage air traffic for the whole world. It was described in the early science fiction stories With The Night Mail and As Easy as ABC by Rudyard Kipling...
(A.B.C.) in the short stories "With the Night Mail" and "Easy as A.B.C.", by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, with which Wells was certainly familiar. The Kipling stories are set in a post-apocalyptic world where airships are commonly used both for freight and passenger service, as well as for preventing civil unrest through use of powerful sonic weapons:
The above description, from Kipling's "With the Night Mail", seems very applicable to the worldwide institution depicted by Wells. However, Kipling's stories contain dystopian elements.
Wells's book might have also been influenced by George Griffith
George Griffith
George Griffith , full name George Chetwyn Griffith-Jones, was a prolific British science fiction writer and noted explorer who wrote during the late Victorian and Edwardian age. Many of his visionary tales appeared in magazines such as Pearson's Magazine and Pearson's Weekly before being published...
's 1893
1893 in literature
The year 1893 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*André Gide begins his travels in North Africa.*Jerome K. Jerome founds the magazine To-Day.-New books:*Byron A...
The Angel of the Revolution
The Angel of the Revolution
The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror is a science fiction novel by English writer George Griffith. It was his first published novel and remains his most famous work...
in which a band of revolutionaries known as 'The Brotherhood of Freedom' masters the technology of flight and eventually establishes a pax aeronautica over the earth.