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What if the power to transform human life also gives nations the means to destroy it?
In H. G. Wells’s The World Set Free, the scientist Holsten discovers how to release the energy within atoms. His work promises an immense new source of power, but governments turn that promise into a weapon. Rival nations send aircraft carrying atomic bombs over cities, and scientific progress becomes a threat to civilization.
Published in 1914, this science fiction novel imagines atomic bombs before they exist. Wells explores a widening gap between human power over nature and the institutions meant to govern it. As destruction spreads, rulers and reformers face a hard question: can nations keep their independence when they can no longer keep their people safe?
What you’ll discover
- A discovery with consequences Follow Holsten’s breakthrough as atomic energy changes the foundations of industry and warfare.
- Cities under atomic threat Encounter weapons that keep releasing destructive energy, leaving cities dangerous long after an attack.
- Power without safety See why governments able to order attacks cannot protect their own countries.
- The cost of independence Weigh national sovereignty against the need for shared authority in a world of devastating weapons.
- Politics tested by science Explore Wells’s argument that new scientific power demands a different way to govern.
Who will love it
Readers who like big ideas told as stories will find a lot here. It suits anyone curious about the roots of the atomic age, early science fiction, and world government.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Power grows faster than human readiness
- Holsten fears his own discovery
- Abundance arrives beside hunger
- Barnet loses faith in the arrangement
- Atomic war destroys its own command
- The flood empties war of purpose
- Leblanc asks for a shared government
- A future voice makes change imaginable
- Knowledge demands more adaptable institutions
Who’s who
- HolstenA young English chemist who first releases atomic energy and fears what his discovery will do to ordinary lives.
- Frederick BarnetA plump, honest young man who loses his family's wealth, becomes a soldier, and records the Great Change in his memoir.
- LeblancA small, bespectacled French ambassador who works tirelessly to unite the world's rulers under a single government.
- King EgbertA young king who walks to Brissago and wants to give away his crown so that the world can be ruled as one.
- FirminEgbert's cautious secretary, once a professor of world politics, who carries the beer and clings to national autonomy.
- Marshal DuboisThe silent French commander who believes that doing nothing and showing nothing is the secret of modern war.
- King Ferdinand CharlesThe scheming Balkan monarch, called the Slavic Fox, who plans to use hidden atomic bombs to rule the earth.
- Marcus KareninA crippled Russian teacher who shapes the new world's education around self-forgetfulness and a shared human purpose.
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The World Set Free
by H. G. Wells · 1914
Holsten splits a speck of bismuth in London, and a world of kings and lawyers has little time to change.
Challenging2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“remains the outstanding expositor of both the hope, and the despair, which are embodied in the technology and which are the major facts of life in our world”
In short
What happens when a single speck of metal bursts into endless fire? In The World Set Free, a young chemist named Holsten tries it in a London laboratory in 1933.
The World Set Free at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 15 min3 h 20 min fast, 5 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 60,600 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1914by H. G. Wells
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Human history is the history of gathered power
The novel opens with a wide look back at how people gained power over the world. The first tools were a chipped flint and a fire. Over a quarter of a million years, people added horses, wind, metals, towns and writing. Wells says this is only half the story, because people also had to learn to live together in ever larger groups.
Inside that history he places a storyteller, a savage who imagines surrounding and killing a mammoth. That tale is the beginning of fiction, and every later seeker descends from him. Most of the world laughs at them.
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Details
- First published
- 1914
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 45 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Wells, H. G. The World Set Free. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-world-set-free.
Wells, H. G. (2026). The world set free. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-world-set-free (Original work published 1914)
Wells, H. G. The World Set Free. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-world-set-free.
@book{wells2026world,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {The World Set Free},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-world-set-free},
note = {First published 1914}
}
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What is The World Set Free about?
It follows the release of atomic energy in the twentieth century, the wars and collapse it causes, and the founding of a world government. The story is told through scientists, a young soldier, rulers and a teacher.
Did H. G. Wells predict the atomic bomb?
Wells wrote in 1913 about atomic energy, bombs that keep exploding, and cities destroyed from the air. He drew on early radioactivity research by Frederick Soddy, though his dates and details differ greatly from real events.
Who are Holsten, Barnet and Leblanc?
Holsten is the chemist who releases atomic energy. Barnet is a young soldier whose memoir tells much of the story. Leblanc is the French ambassador who gathers the world's rulers at Brissago to form one government.
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.
“Government was a pact, not a plan”
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