When the Sleeper Wakes

Rating:
Summary: A Stunning Pre-20th Century View of the Future
Review: Written in the final years of the 19th century by an acknowledged scientific visionary, this book is stunning for its portrayal not just of "modern techological" creations. First and foremost, this book hints at the dramatic societal changes that followed in the 20th century. Most readers will remember Wells' use of the airplane, television, radar, etc. in this novel written in the late 1890s. The conceptualization of these technological wonders for a 19th century inhabitant is remarkable, no doubt. True astonishment, however, arises from Wells' portrayal of societal conflict caused by the awakening of the "Sleeper". We now know, from our vantage point late in the 20th century, that this century will be remembered for pandemic social change, when a majority of mankind (in the many communist, nationalist, and independence movements) moved to a different drumbeat. In the course of these brief one-hundred years, masses have risen and elites fallen in societies on virtually all the continents. We know that redistributions of wealth and the power of mass education have been the historical catalysts. Wells uses the "sleeper" as the agent of change in this wonderfully prophetic novel.