Summary
Summary of The Future in America
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Judge a country by its future
H. G. Wells visits the United States with a question that reaches beyond what he sees: what is this country likely to become? Already known for scientific romances and attempts to forecast social change, he turns his attention to American cities, money, politics, labour and race.
He admires the country's energy, but worries about its lack of a plan. That tension gives his journey its purpose: to judge a nation not simply by its past, but by the direction it is taking.
Key idea 2
Everyday scenes become evidence of change
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Key idea 3
Private ambition needs a public purpose
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Key idea 4
Fairness is tested through people's treatment
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Key idea 5
Public ideas can guide national energy
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Key idea 6
Ask where a society's habits lead
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Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who love sharp travel writing, early twentieth century America, big questions about where nations are heading, and the voice of a famous storyteller turned social observer.
What this book is
The Future in America is a travel book and a long essay by H. G. Wells, the English author of The Time Machine. He sailed to the United States in 1906 and wrote up what he saw for newspaper readers, then gathered it as a book. His question is simple and enormous: what will happen to this country over the next thirty years or so?
Wells does not go looking for skyscrapers or flying machines. He believes the fate of a nation lies in its will, meaning how much purpose it has, how wisely it uses that purpose, and what it is aiming at. So he rides liners and express trains, visits Ellis Island, saloons, prisons, universities and the White House, and tests every scene against that question. Along the way you meet millionaires, child workers, immigrants, politicians, scholars and a president.
You get a sharp, funny, sometimes uneasy portrait of a country in the middle of enormous change. You also get an honest look at the habits of mind of a writer who thinks about tomorrow before today. His views on race and on newcomers carry the opinions of his time, and they sit beside real anger at cruelty. Let us begin with the odd habit of mind that sends him across the ocean.
In this summary
- 1A prophet explains his strange habitFree
- 2A nation's future lies in its will
- 3Progress looks automatic from a liner deck
- 4Growth is vast, but often unruly
- 5Wealth gathers in few hands
- 6Graft, immigrants, and a missing sense of the state
- 7Two prisoners of hasty judgment
- 8Minds that could steer the country
- 9The effort is worth it
Key point 1 of 9
A prophet explains his strange habit
Wells opens with the entry form every visitor must fill in, which asks whether he is a polygamist or an anarchist. He answers politely, because he badly wants to see the country. His reason is a problem that he admits looks absurd. He compares himself to an ant crawling over an elephant, and the elephant is the United States.
He then explains why anyone would think this way. He is, he says, curiously uninterested in things as they are and curiously interested in what they lead to. He borrows the saying of Heraclitus that there is no being but becoming. He admits that this habit makes him a little blind to beauty in the present moment, and that he would not cross an ocean to see a place for what it merely is.
He traces how his prophetic habit grew. As a boy he expected a sudden end of the world with trumpets and judgment. Studying biology showed him instead an endless future, and that was frightening. His first writings, such as The Man of the Year Million and The Time Machine, answered with wild invention.
Next came a stage of drawing straight lines from the present, which gave him When the Sleeper Wakes. Then came the scientific stage of Anticipations, which tried to work out the future from the forces of history. Wells says this method works for things like transport, cities and machinery. It fails for the choices of unique people, because people are not automatons.
His conclusion is that the most important facts about a future are decisions, and decisions come from will. So he will use insight and judgment rather than figures. He quotes Henry James, who asked American mansions what they would make their future out of, for all their airs. That question becomes the book's compass.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why does Wells look beneath American manners?
Right. “Wells wants to look beneath manners at the forces that are moving the country.”Not quite. “Wells wants to look beneath manners at the forces that are moving the country.”
What concern does Wells draw from America's privately driven growth?
Right. “He argues that a country built from many private ambitions may lack a common sense of purpose.”Not quite. “He argues that a country built from many private ambitions may lack a common sense of purpose.”
What does Wells believe could direct American energy toward shared aims?
Right. “He believes that education, open discussion and a growing sense of public duty could turn American energy toward shared aims.”Not quite. “He believes that education, open discussion and a growing sense of public duty could turn American energy toward shared aims.”
Questions about The Future in America
What is The Future in America about?
It records H. G. Wells's 1906 trip to the United States. He visits New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, and asks what the country's will, wealth, politics, immigrants and universities suggest about its future.
When was The Future in America written?
Wells made his trip in the spring of 1906, in the time of President Theodore Roosevelt, and wrote it up soon afterward. It is a real travel account, based on his own visits and conversations.
What does Wells mean by the sense of the state?
He means the idea that private business and daily life belong inside a larger whole that affects other people and lasts beyond one lifetime. He finds that many Americans, rich and ordinary, lack it.
Who are the people Wells meets in the book?
He meets President Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, Maxim Gorky, the prisoner William MacQueen, Harvard's Charles Eliot, Immigration Commissioner Watchorn, Chicago's Alderman Kenna and many ordinary people he describes.
Is The Future in America easy to read?
Yes, it moves briskly through lively scenes such as a liner crossing, Ellis Island, Niagara and a White House garden. Wells writes in a witty, direct voice, and short sections make it easy to follow.
