A Modern Utopia

What It's About

Two travellers, known only as the Owner of the Voice and his companion the botanist, find themselves transported to a version of Earth exactly like their own in geography and biology, but which has developed a radically different society: a unified "world state." As they journey through this parallel world, meeting their own doubles along the way, they piece together how it is governed, organised, and run. The book moves fluidly between story and essay, with Wells using the framework of a journey to set out, at length, his own ideas of what an ideal modern society might look like.

Key Concepts

The Utopia's government rests with the Samurai, a "voluntary nobility" open to any healthy adult willing to live by a strict, self-imposed code of conduct, rather than a hereditary or elected ruling class. Wells contrasts this with static, unchanging visions of utopia found in earlier writers, aiming instead for a "kinetic" state built for continual change and progress. The book also engages with questions of individual liberty within a highly organised society, and touches on economics, marriage, and race from a distinctly Edwardian, and at times dated, perspective.

About the Author

Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer, journalist, and social commentator. Trained originally in biology, he brought a strongly Darwinian outlook to his thinking on politics and society, and was for much of his life an outspoken socialist associated with the Fabian Society.