An Englishman Looks at the World

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: "Bl riot 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.