Looking Backward

by Edward Bellamy

Overview

Stimulating, thought-provoking utopian fantasy about a young man who's put into a hypnotic trance in the late 19th century and awakens in the year 2000 to find crime, war, and want nonexistent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486112251
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	02/03/2012
Series:	Dover Thrift Editions
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) was an American author, journalist, and activist. He was a Nationalist, and his work inspired the establishment of many Nationalist clubs throughout the United States. Bellamy’s most popular work, Looking Backward, was one of the bestsellers of his time, and inspired political action from the readers. The year before he died, Bellamy published a sequel to Looking Backward called Equality that addressed issues overlooked in the original novel. Throughout his prolific career, Edward Bellamy used his talent to advocate for social justice and inspire political change.

Table of Contents

First published in 1888, Looking Backward was one of the most popular novels of its day. Translated into more than 20 languages, its utopian fantasy influenced such thinkers as John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen. Writing from a 19th-century perspective and poignantly critical of his own time, Bellamy advanced a remarkable vision of the future, including such daring predictions as the existence of radio, television, motion pictures, and credit cards.
On the surface, the novel is the story of time-traveler Julian West, a young Bostonian who is put into a hypnotic sleep in the late 19th century, and awakens in the year 2000 in a socialist utopia. Crime, war, personal animosity, and want are nonexistent. Equality of the sexes is a fact of life. In short, a messianic state of brotherly love is in effect.
Entertaining, stimulating, and thought-provoking, Looking Backward is a provocative study of human society as it is and as it might be.

Editorial Reviews

First published in 1888, Bellamy's utopian novel concerns a 19th century Bostonian who awakes from a sleep to find himself in the year 2000 in a world of near-perfect cooperation and prosperity. Historian Daniel Borus adds a 28-page introduction, a chronology of Bellamy's life, a selected bibliography, and questions to consider when reading the novel. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

There is no better book than Looking Backward for understanding the intersecting private and public spheres in Victorian America.”

Professor of History at the University of Southern Richard Fox

One of the great utopian novels...remains at its heart a profoundly radical work of social prophecy.”

Alex MacDonald

Here is the sort of intellectual Buck Rogers. In this nearly forgotten classic, a member of the Boston leisure class falls asleep in 1888 and wakes in 2000. Thence follows endless conversations reflecting journalist/fictionalist Edward Bellamy's prescient solutions to the problems of Victorian industrialism. This is less a novel than a dialectic, a quality that Edward Lewis's dry reading emphasizes. He sounds like an academic reading a paper to the Academy. His precise diction and phrasing are important pluses, given the fustian locutions he has to deal with. Y.R. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

APR/MAY 02 - AudioFile