Herbert George Wells

“ The World Set Free is the latest; they are all "fantasias of possibility"; each one takes some great creative tendency, or group of tendencies, and develops its possible consequences in the future. The War in the Air did that for example with aviation, and is perhaps, as a forecast, the most successful of them all. The present volume takes up certain ideas already very much discussed in the concluding years of the last century, the idea of the growth of the towns and the depopulation of the country-side and the degradation of labour through the higher organisation of industrial production. ”

“ A body of men who had the character and the largeness of imagination necessary to combine and overcome the natural insubordination of the worker would have a character and largeness of imagination too fine and great for any such plot against humanity. ”

“ The great city of this story is no more then than a nightmare of Capitalism triumphant, a nightmare that was dreamt nearly a quarter of a century ago. It is a fantastic possibility no longer possible. Much evil may be in store for mankind, but to this immense, grim organisation of servitude, our race will never come. ”