Publisher's Synopsis
An Englishman Looks at the World is a 1914 essay collection by H. G. Wells containing journalistic pieces written between 1909 and 1914. The book consists of twenty-six pieces ranging from five to sixty-two pages in length. An American edition was published the same year by Harper and Brothers under the title Social Forces in England and America.Wells organized the essays thematically, inserting a fanciful "synopsis" after the table of contents conveying his view that the book constituted an argument: "Blériot arrives and sets him thinking. He flies, and deduces certain consequences of cheap travel. He considers the King, and speculates on the New Epoch; he thinks Imperially, and then, coming to details, about Labour, Socialism, and Modern Warfare. He discourses on the Modern Novel, and the Public Library; criticises Chesterton, Belloc, and Sir Thomas More, and deals with the London Traffic Problem as a Socialist should. He doubts the existence of Sociology, discusses Divorce, Schoolmasters, Motherhood, Doctors, and Specialisation; questions if there is a People, and diagnoses the Political Disease of Our Times. He then speculates upon the future of the American Population, considers a possible set-back to civilisation, the Ideal Citizen, the still undeveloped possibilities of Science, and-in the broadest spirit-the Human Adventure. "Includes a biography of the author.
