10 h 28 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a better world needs not a perfect plan, but room to keep changing?
In A Modern Utopia, H. G. Wells blends essay and science fiction to imagine a planet much like ours, far beyond Sirius. Two travellers wake in the Alps: a talkative author called the Owner of the Voice and a sad, sharp botanist. Walking toward Lucerne, they discover how this world works.
Their journey opens a larger question: how can one world government protect individual freedom? Wells explores land, wages, families and the people who rule. His Utopia must move rather than stand still. Alongside its promises come doubts, including troubling ideas about eugenics and the treatment of people who do not fit.
What you’ll discover
- A world in motion Explore why Wells insists that a better society must keep changing rather than settle into perfection.
- Freedom with rules Consider the tension between personal privacy, freedom of movement and the records that support this society.
- Land held for everyone Examine a world where land belongs to the state, held in trust for all.
- Work and a living Weigh Wells's claim that nobody should face starvation or work for less than a living.
- The people who govern Meet the Samurai, Wells's voluntary nobility, and consider who should hold power in a planned world.
Who will love it
For readers who love big social ideas, the history of utopian thought, and the early twentieth century mind that shaped modern science fiction. It invites anyone interested in how personal freedom and planned government can live together.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A modern Utopia must keep moving
- One world state, many local colours
- The land belongs to everyone
- Freedom needs records and rules
- A floor under every wage
- Mothers, children and the shaping of the race
- The Samurai, a voluntary nobility
- Failures are cared for and kept apart
- What the dream got right and wrong
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Una utopía moderna
by H. G. Wells · 1905
Two travellers descend from the Alps into a world state where personal freedom meets the rules of a planned society.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A modern Utopia must keep moving
Wells begins by quarrelling with the old utopias. Plato's Republic and More's Utopia describe perfect cities, fixed in place. Their laws balance happiness once and for all, and nothing is meant to change. Wells says this cannot satisfy a reader who has absorbed Darwin. After evolution, we know that life never stands still. A society that tried to stop time would either rot or have to be held in place by force.
So Wells asks for a kinetic utopia, not a static one. It would be a hopeful stage, not a final one. It would rest on laws and customs that allow improvement, with each generation able to start a little higher than the last. The aim is a society that learns, that corrects itself, and that holds more promise than any single plan could hold.
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What is A Modern Utopia about?
It describes an imagined Earth-like planet run as a single world state, where land is publicly owned and liberty is protected. Two travellers explore its economy, families and rulers, while Wells argues for and against his own ideas.
What are the Samurai in A Modern Utopia?
They are a voluntary ruling order who follow a strict Rule of discipline, study and solitude. Anyone fit and willing may join, and only members may hold the main offices of government.
Is A Modern Utopia a novel?
Not quite. It mixes essay and fiction. A narrator and a botanist travel through Utopia, but long stretches are the author's direct argument, so it reads more like a guided tour of ideas than a plot.
The author
H. G. Wells
1866–1946 · English science fiction novelist
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer born in Bromley, Kent. He wrote novels, short stories and nonfiction. His novels included The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). He died in London.
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