Rating: 
Summary: An Important Piece of Utopian Literature
Review: Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, is a vision of a utopian Boston of the year 2000 seen in the eyes of the fictional, nineteenth century Bostonian, Julian West. Having fallen asleep for 113 years Mr. West is awakened by the Leetes family. Over the course of the next several days he discovers a multitude of changes that have occurred during his long slumber. Most importantly or most overarchingly is the idea of social change that has occurred. While many other authors' ideas of the future have involved images of great technological change, they have not demonstrated an adaptation of human behavioral change. In Bellamy's eyes however, there are some technological innovations but the primary changes occur in the areas of economics that leads to dramatic changes in the human condition. It seems to be a world in which, once everyone decided not to fight over money any longer, then people were capable of getting along. Public service and public caring for one another is the norm. In the USA of Bellamy's 2000, the government is a centralized state with the military as the primary employer. Bellamy refers to it as a corporate state and the industrialized army. In his world military and service go hand in hand. In his exploration Bellamy addresses many issues that would be of concern to not only his readers but to readers to this day. Obviously there is the economic foundation of both the nineteenth and the imaginary twentieth century of the book. This leads directly to the issues of labor. Issues of international economics, law and prison all come up in West's exploration of his newly discovered world. Again each of these issues is ultimately related and hence resolved through economics. Women's equality remains an unresolved although tremendously improved issue (an understatement). Women's issues are in some ways resolved because they are no longer the unpaid domestics that they were in Bellamy's day. There is less need for lawyers and understanding the law because things have been resolved with economics so that people are fighting over civil issues and since everyone has they same economic status then there is no need to steal. There is a great sense in Bellamy's writing that social Darwinism plays a significant role. Clearly there is an idea of eugenics (reminiscent of the Oneida community) where the bad parts of society are simply bread out of society. "Like the social Darwinists of his day, Bellamy viewed character traits as inborn and believed that the morally as well as the physically unfit must be weeded out if human beings were to evolve to a higher state." (Strauss, 76) What must be addressed about this particular work is the influence that it exhibited on other writers in Bellamy's day and after. "It influenced movements of Christian socialism wherever they appeared it positions echo and re-echo on George Bernard Shaw, Veblen, Debs, Norman Thomas and the early Zionists." (Halewood, 451) Although the book is missing from today's list of important contributions to American thought, the book's enormous popularity at the end of the previous century must be acknowledged. "Looking Backward was possibly the most popular utopian novel ever written, igniting a nationwide social reform movement and leaving an enduring mark upon the rising generation of American intellectuals and writers." (McClay, 264) The problems that it raises for us, as readers near the end of the twentieth century, are in areas of middle-class elitism, overt ideology, and the lack of demonstrative communal activity. This book is, however, a powerful example of a novel that moved from text to social reform movement. It has been said that the book is not a well-written piece of literature but that the significance of the text is in its effect on the society in which it was consumed. A utopian vision of a future world does two very important functions. One, it shows a more perfect vision of a happy world. But inherently in that vision is the need to discuss or point out all of the elements of the current world that make for an unhappy world. This book had profound influence not so much in the literary world, although numerous other utopian texts were produced in the years following its publication. With Bellamy we find a book that influenced nationalism throughout the United States and lead to socialistic reforms in policy in the early part of the twentieth century.
Rating: 
Summary: Off and On Target (or Wal-mart)
Review: Edward Bellamy's vision of the year 2000 from the author's vantage of 1887 was wrong on the big things, but right on many smaller things. The Utopian communistic society never came to pass in America, but other things did. A previous reviewer mentioned the foreshadowing of e-commerce, but I would add cable broadcasting and the superstore, i.e. Wal-mart. Bellamy had a New Englander's hatred of waste and the book was his attempt to answer that very American question, "How can we do this better?"All in all, a hopeful and challenging book. It makes you ponder conditions in the real year 2000 and the possibilities a hundred years hence. If you liked H.G. Wells' "A Time Machine" or Thomas More's "Utopia," then there's a good chance you'd like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: An epic view at an idealistic future
Review: First written in 1887, this book still holds credence today. Bellemy's vision of the future, while utopian, reminds us of the need for idealism behind all progress and hope behind all reform. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Epic Ideas for the time, but not rightfully a book
Review: From what I hear, one of the first organizations of so many radical ideas into one place. Many of the ideas are clever, and there are a few that I had never heard before, some that actually have the illusion of being plausible, until I give myself a reality check. I don't blame Bellamy for not knowing what would happen with many of his socialistic ideas, I blame him for not thinking. Complaints: 1: Apparently the improvement of working standards have eliminated all hate and crime. What!? 2: With equal reward for work in every job (except in the case authors), people are expected to be more motivated for honor's sake. That sure has worked well in the past. (rolls eyes). 3: The characters are nothing but vessels to transmit Bellamy's ideas. The main character awakens after a century long sleep with everyone he ever knew or cared about dead, and after a moment of shock, says 'hey, let's go find out how the new social system works, and spends the rest of the book doing just that. I realize that this was probably the most effective way Bellamy could find to convey his ideas, but if utopian novel were presented in this format today, regardless of the ideas put forth, I think it would be called a piece of trash. Out of respect for history and some of the good ideas in this book I will give it 3 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Paint Drying is more interesting
Review: Having been forced to read "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, for a American History class, I can safely say that there are some parts that are interesting, but most of the novel is about as mind numbing as watching paint dry!
Rating:
Summary: Paint Drying is more interesting
Review: Having been forced to read "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, for a American History class, I can safely say that there are some parts that are interesting, but most of the novel is about as mind numbing as watching paint dry!
Rating:
Summary: A warmly human and enlightening read
Review: Having never really heard of this novel or its author before, I was rather surprised to discover how immensely popular it was at the end of the nineteenth century. Edward Bellamy does an excellent albeit sometimes pedantic job of communicating his socioeconomic views and provides an interesting and informative read, despite the fact that the utopia of his fictional creation is a socialist nightmare in the realm of my own personal philosophy. It is very important to understand the time in which Bellamy was writing, especially for a conservative-minded thinker such as myself who holds many of Bellamy's views as anathema. It was the mid-1880s, a time of great social unrest; vast strikes by labor unions, clashes between workers and managers, a debilitating economic depression. Bellamy, to his credit, in no way comes off as holier than thou; his wealthy protagonist recognizes his own responsibility in seeing the world in the eyes of the more prosperous classes, basically ignoring the plights of the poor and downtrodden, having inherited rather than earned the money he is privileged to enjoy, etc. This makes the character's observations and conclusions very impactful upon the reader. While I do respect Bellamy's views and understand the context in which they germinated, I cannot help but describe his future utopia as nothing less than naïve, socialistic, unworkable, and destructive of the individual spirit. Indeed, it sounds to me like vintage Soviet communism, at least in its ideals. Bellamy is a Marxist with blinders on. I should describe the actual novel at this point. The protagonist, an insomniac having employed a mesmerist to help him sleep through the night, finds himself waking up not the following morning in 1887 but in a completely changed world in 2000. His bed chamber was a subterranean fortress of sorts which only he, his servant, and the mesmerist (who left the city that same night) even knew about, and apparently his home proper burned down on that fateful night and thus his servant was clearly unable to bring him out of his trance the following morning. It is only by accident that Dr. Leekes of twentieth-century Boston discovers the unknown tomb and helps resuscitate its remarkable inhabitant. 20th-century life is wholly unlike anything the protagonist has ever known, and the book basically consists of a number of instruction sessions by the Leekes as to how society has been virtually perfected over the preceding 100 years. There is no more war, crime, unhappiness, discrimination, etc. There are no such things as wages or prices, even. All men and women are paid the same by virtue of their being human beings; while money does not exist, everyone has everything they possibly need easily available to them for purchase with special credit cards. Every part of the economy is controlled by the national government, and it is through cooperation of the brotherhood of men that production has exceeded many times over that of privately controlled industries fighting a war against each other in the name of capitalism. Bellamy's future utopia is most open to question in terms of the means by which individualism is supposedly strengthened rather than smothered, how a complex but seemingly set of incentives supposedly keep each worker happy and productive, how invention or improvement of anything is possible in such a world, and how this great society does not in fact become a mirror of Khrushchev's Russian state. Such a society consisting of an "industrial army" and controlled in the minutest of terms by a central national authority simply sounds like Communism to my ears and is equally as unsustainable. Of course, Bellamy wrote this novel many years before the first corruptions of Marx's dangerous dreams were made a reality on earth. As I said, I disagree with just about everything Bellamy praises, and I think almost anyone would agree his utopia is an impossibility, but I greatly respect the man for his bold, humanitarian vision and applaud his efforts to make the world a better place. In fact, many groups organized themselves along the lines of the world Bellamy envisioned, so the novel's influence on contemporary popular thought is beyond question. Looking Backward remains a fascinating read in our own time. I should make clear that the novel is not completely a dry recitation of socioeconomic arguments and moralistic treatises. Bellamy makes the story of this most unusual of time travelers a most enjoyable one, bringing in an unusual type of old-fashioned romance to supply the beating heart of a novel that had the potential to become overly analytical and thus rather boring reading otherwise. He also managed to grab me by the scruff of the neck and shake me around a couple of times with his concluding chapter, quite shocking me with a couple of unexpected plot twists. This great humanist of the late nineteenth century can teach us all something about what it means to be truly human, although I fear that his socioeconomic theories are themselves far too romanticized to have much practical relevance in the lives of modern men and women.
Rating:
Summary: A warmly human and enlightening read
Review: Having never really heard of this novel or its author before, I was rather surprised to discover how immensely popular it was at the end of the nineteenth century. Edward Bellamy does an excellent albeit sometimes pedantic job of communicating his socioeconomic views and provides an interesting and informative read, despite the fact that the utopia of his fictional creation is a socialist nightmare in the realm of my own personal philosophy. It is very important to understand the time in which Bellamy was writing, especially for a conservative-minded thinker such as myself who holds many of Bellamy's views as anathema. It was the mid-1880s, a time of great social unrest; vast strikes by labor unions, clashes between workers and managers, a debilitating economic depression. Bellamy, to his credit, in no way comes off as holier than thou; his wealthy protagonist recognizes his own responsibility in seeing the world in the eyes of the more prosperous classes, basically ignoring the plights of the poor and downtrodden, having inherited rather than earned the money he is privileged to enjoy, etc. This makes the character's observations and conclusions very impactful upon the reader. While I do respect Bellamy's views and understand the context in which they germinated, I cannot help but describe his future utopia as nothing less than naïve, socialistic, unworkable, and destructive of the individual spirit. Indeed, it sounds to me like vintage Soviet communism, at least in its ideals. Bellamy is a Marxist with blinders on. I should describe the actual novel at this point. The protagonist, an insomniac having employed a mesmerist to help him sleep through the night, finds himself waking up not the following morning in 1887 but in a completely changed world in 2000. His bed chamber was a subterranean fortress of sorts which only he, his servant, and the mesmerist (who left the city that same night) even knew about, and apparently his home proper burned down on that fateful night and thus his servant was clearly unable to bring him out of his trance the following morning. It is only by accident that Dr. Leekes of twentieth-century Boston discovers the unknown tomb and helps resuscitate its remarkable inhabitant. 20th-century life is wholly unlike anything the protagonist has ever known, and the book basically consists of a number of instruction sessions by the Leekes as to how society has been virtually perfected over the preceding 100 years. There is no more war, crime, unhappiness, discrimination, etc. There are no such things as wages or prices, even. All men and women are paid the same by virtue of their being human beings; while money does not exist, everyone has everything they possibly need easily available to them for purchase with special credit cards. Every part of the economy is controlled by the national government, and it is through cooperation of the brotherhood of men that production has exceeded many times over that of privately controlled industries fighting a war against each other in the name of capitalism. Bellamy's future utopia is most open to question in terms of the means by which individualism is supposedly strengthened rather than smothered, how a complex but seemingly set of incentives supposedly keep each worker happy and productive, how invention or improvement of anything is possible in such a world, and how this great society does not in fact become a mirror of Khrushchev's Russian state. Such a society consisting of an "industrial army" and controlled in the minutest of terms by a central national authority simply sounds like Communism to my ears and is equally as unsustainable. Of course, Bellamy wrote this novel many years before the first corruptions of Marx's dangerous dreams were made a reality on earth. As I said, I disagree with just about everything Bellamy praises, and I think almost anyone would agree his utopia is an impossibility, but I greatly respect the man for his bold, humanitarian vision and applaud his efforts to make the world a better place. In fact, many groups organized themselves along the lines of the world Bellamy envisioned, so the novel's influence on contemporary popular thought is beyond question. Looking Backward remains a fascinating read in our own time. I should make clear that the novel is not completely a dry recitation of socioeconomic arguments and moralistic treatises. Bellamy makes the story of this most unusual of time travelers a most enjoyable one, bringing in an unusual type of old-fashioned romance to supply the beating heart of a novel that had the potential to become overly analytical and thus rather boring reading otherwise. He also managed to grab me by the scruff of the neck and shake me around a couple of times with his concluding chapter, quite shocking me with a couple of unexpected plot twists. This great humanist of the late nineteenth century can teach us all something about what it means to be truly human, although I fear that his socioeconomic theories are themselves far too romanticized to have much practical relevance in the lives of modern men and women.
Rating:
Summary: from a reader in Bellamy's future
Review: I agree with other reviewers who have pointed out that Bellamy's book wasn't intended to foretell the future but rather to draw attention to ugly aspects of the society and times in which he lived. However, since others have already so eloquently dealt with that aspect of the book, I thought it might be fun to dwell on the sci-fi aspect of the book in my review.
Written in 1887, this novel is full of predictions about the year 2000. Bellamy gets a few things right, and he gets a few things wrong. Things have changed so radically since his day that it's fun to discover what a person from that time thought might come about in our time.
While airplanes and international phonecalls might have been foreseen, who could have imagined computers that understand human speech or even the Walkman - something that's pretty mundane by today's standards? And who could have possibly imagined such bizarre musical genres as disco, techno and rap? I suspect an equal number of surprises are in store for our descendants 130 years down the road.
Bellamy doesn't foresee any of the above. Nor does he mention automobiles or recorded music, two ideas that must surely have been under development already in his time. Instead, he foresees a time when various styles of music will be available 24 hours a day via telephone, all provided by real-live musicians. A time when all the public sidewalks of Boston will have awnings to keep the rain off those who get caught out in the middle of a rainstorm. And, if his predictions about how government will be run in our time are flat out wrong, the resulting situation isn't so far off. After all, the vast majority of Americans and many others around the globe live like the kings and queens that ruled their ancestors.
But if a greater number of people in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and many other parts of the world still live without adequate food and shelter, it only shows that we still have our work cut out for us. (More so than ever today, I suppose one might have to say.)
Bellamy's prose is surprisingly easy to read considering how long ago it was written. The reader does stumble across odd expressions here and there, but it's less strange than one might guess it would be. And the strangeness of the prose is part of what makes the reading interesting.
Also, the fact that Bellamy's predictions are so different from what one might guess at first thought suggests some interesting differences in thinking and culture between people living in the same country 100 years apart.
Decades of carefully crafted propoganda have convinced most Americans that big government is anathema while big business grows and grows until today a company like Wal-Mart has a virtual stranglehold on major suppliers of many types of goods. I agree with the indictment of big government, but I think it's the 'big' part that's the most dangerous thing, no matter what the organization.
In summary, I agree with many who feel there's still something to be gained from what we learn in this book despite the gross failure of communism and the problems, large and small, that plague socialist programs like Canadian and European national health care.
Visionaries in the business world and the sciences are constantly working on new models for improving our life. Paul Hawken tells some of their stories in his book _The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability_.
Rating:
Summary: Compare this to "Time Machine"
Review: I grew up on science fiction, and many years ago read this book and was utterly unimpressed. Over the years, at SF conventions, I would ask other fans if they had read this book. Now these are fans who could regale you with quotes from Star Trek, or Star Wars, and who often had read most of Larry Niven or Andre Norton. But "Looking Backward"? Bellamy? Many had never heard of the book or the author. Those who had read the book often shared my opinion. By comparison, all I asked had read "Time Machine" by Wells, and had seen the movie. I think it is instructive to compare the two books. Written within a few years of each other, with Bellamy's actually being the first, why did "Time Machine" live on, and the other being relegated to a well deserved obscurity? In fact, "Time Machine" is generally considered the first famous novel that describes the concept of time travel. Try reading the two books consecutively. Well's story is gripping and dramatic. Bellamy's seems stilted and ponderous. Part of this is just the differences in literary style in the intervening century. But "Time Machine" is still a dashing read. Bellamy's text is a thinly wrapped polemic; a hosanna to his vision of a socialistic utopia. Most of the book is a hectoring lecture as to how late twentieth century Boston is a secular paradise, with the evils of capitalism just a historial curiosity. For one thing, books on utopia do not sell well. Regardless of your personal political beliefs, a book that is soothing and tranquil lacks a certain vivacity and drama. This book is significant today, but NOT as science fiction. Rather as a guidepost to the socialistic beliefs of a certain subculture of a past century. Don't hold your breath waiting for the movie!
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