The Salvaging of Civilization

This is the annotated edition including the rare biographical essay by Edwin E. Slosson called "H. G. Wells - A Major Prophet Of His Time". The Probable Future of Mankind is the subtitle of this book, and sums up very definitely what it is about. In his early days Mr. Wells was very preoccupied with a possible future where the world was overrun by monsters from Mars, and really those flights of fancy of his are rather more intriguing than his present notions of the world over-run by committees. However for those whose present allows them enough leisure to toy with the potential Utopias the book is fluent and glib enough of course, although it does lead to those terrible discussions of the Five-Foot-Book-Shelf genre, which are apt to be fluent also, but illustrative of how futile is the mere idea of Utopia.