Overview Though his story is a work of fiction, several of Wells' short-term predictions from
The Shape of Things to Come would come true, such as the
aerial bombing of whole cities (which was presented in more detail than in his previous book
The War in the Air) and the eventual development of
weapons of mass destruction. Others, such as the
withering of state-power and the dissolution of
Islam, have not come to pass. A
frame story claims that the book is Wells' 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 recall of it. It is split into five "books." The first of these details history from the
Great War to 1933. In late 1933 or early 1934,
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's failure to implement the
New Deal and revive the
US economy, and
Adolf Hitler's failure to revive the
German economy by
rearmament, cause the worldwide
economic crisis to continue for thirty years, concurrently with a Second World War - a war fought between countries already on the verge of economic collapse, which is hastened by the war. Wells' Second World War breaks out in January 1940 with a European conflagration from the flashpoint of a violent clash between Germans and Poles at
Danzig - closely matching the actual outbreak of WWII. However, Wells's imagined war sharply diverges from the actual war when
Poland proves a military match for
Germany. The inconclusive war lasts ten years. Other countries are eventually dragged into the fighting, though
France and the
Soviet Union are only marginally involved. The
United Kingdom remains neutral and the
United States fights with
Japan to indecisive effect on both sides. The Austrian
Anschluss happens during, rather than before, the war.
Czechoslovakia avoids German occupation. Its President,
Edvard Beneš, survives to initiate the final Suspension of Hostilities in 1950. Wells' prediction was off the mark with regard to
Spain. In Wells' history, Spain stays out of the violent passions sweeping Europe. In actuality, the
Spanish Civil War - a particular strong manifestation of these violent passions - would begin two years after the book's publication. He correctly predicted that the coming war would involve both sides launching heavy bombings of each other's main cities. His depiction of the destroyed
Unter Den Linden closely predicted its actual fate in the war. However, Wells wrongly thought that land fighting would quickly bog down, as in
World War I, and that
tanks would prove completely ineffective. In Wells' future,
submarines become the launching pads for "air torpedoes" (
submarine-launched ballistic missiles) carrying
weapons of mass destruction. This enables nations to threaten the destruction of places halfway around the world. This would not come true in
World War II, but instead in later decades. The Second World War ends with no victor but total exhaustion, collapse and disintegration of both involved and neutral countries, all affected by the deepening economic crisis. Nearly all governments break down, and a devastating
plague in 1956 and 1957 kills a large part of humanity. Civilization nearly ends. A
benevolent dictatorship, the
Dictatorship of the Air, arises from the controllers of the world's surviving transport systems, who are the only people with global power. The dictatorship promotes
science, enforces
Basic English as a global
lingua franca and eradicates all
religions, setting the world on the road to a
utopia. When the dictatorship chooses to execute a subject, the condemned is given a chance to take a poison tablet modeled on the
hemlock given to
Socrates. The achievement of a
classless society is not via a Marxist
dictatorship of the proletariat, which Wells rejected. Rather, the
working class is "pulled upwards" and eliminated in several generations of
upward social mobility, leaving a humanity entirely composed of "middle class intellectuals". The limited amount of physical labor still needed is performed by the world's youth, who undergo two years of "labor conscription" instead of military conscription, which is no longer needed. After around a hundred years, the Dictatorship of the Air is overthrown in a bloodless
coup. The former rulers are sent into honorable retirement and the world state "
withers away". The last part of the book details the utopian world that emerges. The aim of this utopian world is to produce a world society made up entirely of
polymaths, every one of its members being the intellectual equal of the greatest geniuses of the past.
Suppression of religion A major aspect of the creation of the World State is the abolition of all organized religion, a step deemed indispensable to giving the emerging "Modern State" a monopoly over education and the complete ability to mold new generations of humanity. The abolition of
Islam is carried out by the Air Police, who "descend upon
Mecca and close down the main holy places", apparently without major incident. Islam later 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. The
Lebanese-American scholar George Nasser remarked on this aspect of Wells's book: "In the 1979 imagined by H.G. Wells, a self-appointed ruling elite composed mainly of Westerners, with one Chinese and one Black African and not a single Arab member, would establish itself in the Arab and Muslim city of
Basra and calmly take the decision to completely extinguish and extirpate the Muslim religion... In the 1979 of real history,
Khomeini's
Islamic Republic of Iran came into being". Wells's speculations, which may well seem absurd from a more modern point of view, can be much better understood under the impression of the establishment and attempted suppression of Islam in
Turkey under
Atatürk in the 1920s and 1930s. There is only a brief reference to the abolition of
Buddhism and no reference to any serious problems 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 the Catholic hierarchy are gassed unconscious when they bless new aircraft, 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". When it is subdued there also, the resistance is maintained only in
Latin America, under "a coloured Pope in
Pernambuco". This too is suppressed. Wells gives considerable attention to the fate of the
Jews. In this history, an enfeebled
Nazi Germany is incapable of systematic murder on the scale of
The Holocaust. However, Jews greatly suffer from "unorganized" persecution. Anti-Jewish
pogroms happen "everywhere in Europe" during the chaotic 1950s. Then, in a world where all nation-states are a doomed anachronism,
Zionism and its ambition to create a new state come to naught. In the later struggle between the emerging world state and its opponents, Jews are caught between the proverbial hammer and anvil. Following the launch of its antireligious campaign, the Modern State closes down all
kosher butcheries still in operation, while the opening act of the "Federated Nationalist" rebels opposing the Modern 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 that triumphs. The Jews, who had resisted earlier pressures, become absorbed in the general society and lose their separate identity.
Democracy, fascism and communism In the 1930s, especially after the collapse of the
Weimar Republic and the rise of
Nazi Germany, the survival of European democracy seemed in doubt. Wells, not a great supporter of democracy even in its more robust times, clearly shared that outlook. The book notes that at the outbreak of war in 1940,
France was "still" a
parliamentary democracy, the implication being that of an anachronistic government. The visionary Gustave de Windt, setting out the blueprint for the coming "Modern State", rejects "
The Principle of Opposition", which by definition rules out parliamentary democracy. Wells's future history remembers
fascism more as ridiculous and stupid than as horrible. As mentioned above,
Nazi Germany gets bogged down in its war with
Poland, never to achieve conquests or
the Holocaust. It collapses and disintegrates. No mention is made of
Hitler's fate. Nazism disappears without a trace. An attempt to revive
Italian Fascism is easily swept away by the triumphant Modern State. The book notes that many people who were Fascists or Nazis in their early years had become staunch adherents of the Modern State in the more mature part of their lives. The future remembers
Stalin as narrow and limited but not as a bloody dictator. The
Soviet Union is less affected than other countries by the chaos of the late 1940s and the 1950s. With the rise of the Modern State,
Russia has a bloodless takeover by the pilots and other skilled technicians, who displace the
Communist Party bureaucrats. It assimilates into the new worldwide state. During the transition, the
hammer and sickle are displayed side by side with the Modern State's Winged Disk. Altogether, of the three competing systems of government (democracy, fascism and communism), only the last would be remembered by Wells's Modern State as having been a predecessor.
The Death of Socrates When the Modern State finds it necessary to sentence people to death, the condemned person is given a lethal "tabloid" and is allowed to choose the moment and the location for taking it. Death by the tabloid is instantaneous and painless. Though not explicitly mentioned, this aspect of Wells' vision of the future was clearly inspired by the well-known episode of the end of the philosopher
Socrates, who - when condemned to death in ancient Athens - took
hemlock and died, surrounded by his friends and discoursing of philosophy to his last moment.
Use of "C.E." The book displays one of the earliest uses of the label "C.E." on calendar years in place of the more common
AD ("Anno Domini"). Wells states that his use of "C.E." stands for "
Christian Era", but in common parlance, the abbreviation is now more usually understood to mean "
Common Era".
Railways Wells' elite, in its efforts to rebuild the ruined world, takes "in a single afternoon" the decision not to revive the railways. Instead, a vast network of nine-lane super-highways is constructed across Europe - not a complete success, since the predicted vast motor traffic never emerges to make use of these highways. The idea that railways were an anachronism to be gotten rid of was common in the 1930's, but later there was a renewed appreciation of the advantages of the railway. ==Relation to
Brave New World==