Abstract
WHEN Mr. Wells writes upon social and political questions he is a prophet whom it is a pleasure to follow, even when we feel that time will prove his extrapolation careless. What mistakes he may have made in this book will declare themselves in a year or two, so that he has placed his reputation in more jeopardy than usual. He believes that Germany will be beaten, but not completely crushed by this war; “she is going to be left militarist and united with Austria and Hungary, and unchanged in her essential nature; and out of that state of affairs comes, I believe, the hope for an ultimate confederation of the nations of the earth.” The Central Powers remaining a menace, the Allies and America will reform all their methods. It is in discussing these reforms that Mr. Wells is at his best; he is on his own familiar ground, and he excites the admiration and sympathy of his most exacting critics. The chapter, “Nations in Liquidation,” contains in one sentence his great, idea: “The landlord who squeezes, the workman who strikes and shirks, the lawyer who fogs and obstructs, will know, and will know that most people know, that what he does is done, not under an empty, regardless heaven, but in the face of an unsleeping enemy and in disregard of a continuous urgent necessity for unity.”
What is Coming? A Forecast of Things after the War.
By H. G. Wells. Pp. 295. (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 6s. net.
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P., J. What is Coming? A Forecast of Things after the War . Nature 97, 478 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097478a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097478a0