Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought


Book Description

It is proposed in this book to present in as orderly an arrangement as the necessarily diffused nature of the subject admits, certain speculations about the trend of present forces, speculations which, taken all together, will build up an imperfect and very hypothetical, but sincerely intended forecast of the way things will probably go in this new century. Necessarily diffidence will be one of the graces of the performance. Hitherto such forecasts have been presented almost invariably in the form of fiction, and commonly the provocation of the satirical opportunity has been too much for the writer; the narrative form becomes more and more of a nuisance as the speculative inductions become sincerer, and here it will be abandoned altogether in favour of a texture of frank inquiries and arranged considerations. Our utmost aim is a rough sketch of the coming time, a prospectus, as it were, of the joint undertaking of mankind in facing these impending years. The reader is a prospective shareholder-he and his heirs-though whether he will find this anticipatory balance-sheet to his belief or liking is another matter. For reasons that will develop themselves more clearly as these papers unfold, it is extremely convenient to begin with a speculation upon the probable developments and changes of the means of land locomotion during the coming decades.




Anticipations


Book Description

Anticipations H. G. Wells - Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought, or as it is generally known "Anticipations" was written by H.G. Wells in 1900, at the age of 34. The book became a bestseller, and he personally deemed it "the keystone to the main arch of my work."Wells looks at the changes due to occur, because of various technologies. In both a social and material superstructural sense. He starts with the changes caused by the steam engine and the mechanical revolution that occurred. Wells believed that humans were living through a great reorganisation of society, which would ultimately effect every single aspect of life. The accuracy of Wells' predictions are stunning.




In the Days of the Comet


Book Description

This is H. G. Wells' 1906 science fiction novel, "In the Days of the Comet". The strange vapours of a nearby comet begin to alter the air of Earth itself, engendering an incredible, long-lasting transformation in the way people think. An entertaining and thought-provoking novel, "In the Days of the Comet" represents the classic sci-fi that Wells is famous for, and it is not to be missed by fans and collectors of his seminal work. Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Although never a winner, Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature a total of four times. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author. First published in 1906.




Nature


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The Discovery of the Future


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The Food of the Gods


Book Description

Published in 1904, this forgotten classic is sci-fi and dystopia at its best, written by the creator and master of the genre Following extensive research in the field of "growth," Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood light upon a new mysterious element, a food that causes greatly accelerated development. Initially christening their discovery "The Food of the Gods," the two scientists are overwhelmed by the possible ramifications of their creation. Needing room for experiments, Mr. Besington chooses a farm that offers him the chance to test on chickens, which duly grow monstrous, six or seven times their usual size. With the farmer, Mr. Skinner, failing to contain the spread of the Food, chaos soon reigns as reports come in of local encounters with monstrous wasps, earwigs, and rats. The chickens escape, leaving carnage in their wake. The Skinners and Redwoods have both been feeding their children the compound illicitly—their eventual offspring will constitute a new age of giants. Public opinion rapidly turns against the scientists and society rebels against the world's new flora and fauna. Daily life has changed shockingly and now politicians are involved, trying to stamp out the Food of the Gods and the giant race. Comic and at times surprisingly touching and tragic, Wells' story is a cautionary tale warning against the rampant advances of science but also of the dangers of greed, political infighting, and shameless vote-seeking.




Collected Works


Book Description

This comprehensive collection - without images and optimized in file size for quick access - contains: A Modern Utopia A Short History of the World An Englishman Looks at the World / Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story Anticipations / Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought Bealby; A Holiday Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump / Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times Certain Personal Matters First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" God, the Invisible King In the Days of the Comet In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace Joan and Peter: The story of an education Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul Little Wars (a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books) Love and Mr. Lewisham Mankind in the Making Marriage Mr. Britling Sees It Through Russia in the Shadows Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) and Two Other Reminiscences Socialism and the family Tales of Space and Time Text Book of Biology, Vertebrata The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories The Discovery of the Future The Door in the Wall, and Other Stories The First Men in the Moon The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth The Future in America: A Search After Realities The History of Mr. Polly The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance The Island of Doctor Moreau The New Machiavelli The New Teaching of History / With a reply to some recent criticisms of The Outline of History The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind The Plattner Story, and Others The Red Room The Research Magnificent The Salvaging Of Civilization The Sea Lady The Secret Places of the Heart The Sleeper Awakes / A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes The Soul of a Bishop The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents The Time Machine The Undying Fire: A contemporary novel The War in the Air The War of the Worlds The War That Will End War The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman The Wonderful Visit The World Set Free This Misery of Boots Tono-Bungay Twelve Stories and a Dream War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War Washington and the Riddle of Peace What is Coming? A Forecast of Things after the War When the Sleeper Wakes Herbert George Wells wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback - utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering...




From a "Race of Masters" to a "Master Race": 1948 to 1848


Book Description

Nazism remains an enigma. Historians do not know whether to slot Nazism as a phenomenon of the political “right” or “left,” largely because of a misunderstanding of how central eugenics was to the regime. Eugenics, or “racial hygiene,” was at the core of National Socialism’s domestic policy, foreign policy, culture wars, and even Hitler’s obsession with cars, highways, and city planning. Thus, no coherent understanding of the regime is possible without first grasping the nature of eugenics. Eugenics did not originate with Nazi Germany. It was the culmination of a worldwide movement that was widely accepted by the global scientific and academic community. This book traces the origins of the Nazi eugenics state, working backward down the timeline, tracing from leaf down to the root. We investigate this 100-year trajectory from its beginnings in British and American Academia, delving into the conveniently forgotten inner-workings of a scientific era, uncovering previously unpublished manuscripts, professional correspondence, and conveniently forgotten publications. With the centenary of The Holocaust looming, uprooting the web of professional connections that engendered this movement is in order. The seeds of Holocaust denial take root and prosper with misinformation. Clarity and transparency are imperative, as they leave no room for denial theories that would deprive the victims of justice, or rob the living of a future. www.RaceOfMasters.com  NOTE: A preliminary version of this book was circulated amongst academic circles and other interested parties as an Advanced Readers Copy (A.R.C.) in 2015. This version is a part the Eugenics Anthology seven-book series that is currently being completed by A.E. Samaan. Hardbound versions of the books will not be released until the series is complete, and all the puzzle pieces in place. For more information, please visit EugenicsAnthology.com




Turn-taking in human communicative interaction


Book Description

The core use of language is in face-to-face conversation. This is characterized by rapid turn-taking. This turn-taking poses a number central puzzles for the psychology of language. Consider, for example, that in large corpora the gap between turns is on the order of 100 to 300 ms, but the latencies involved in language production require minimally between 600 ms (for a single word) or 1500 ms (for as simple sentence). This implies that participants in conversation are predicting the ends of the incoming turn and preparing in advance. But how is this done? What aspects of this prediction are done when? What happens when the prediction is wrong? What stops participants coming in too early? If the system is running on prediction, why is there consistently a mode of 100 to 300 ms in response time? The timing puzzle raises further puzzles: it seems that comprehension must run parallel with the preparation for production, but it has been presumed that there are strict cognitive limitations on more than one central process running at a time. How is this bottleneck overcome? Far from being 'easy' as some psychologists have suggested, conversation may be one of the most demanding cognitive tasks in our everyday lives. Further questions naturally arise: how do children learn to master this demanding task, and what is the developmental trajectory in this domain? Research shows that aspects of turn-taking, such as its timing, are remarkably stable across languages and cultures, but the word order of languages varies enormously. How then does prediction of the incoming turn work when the verb (often the informational nugget in a clause) is at the end? Conversely, how can production work fast enough in languages that have the verb at the beginning, thereby requiring early planning of the whole clause? What happens when one changes modality, as in sign languages – with the loss of channel constraints is turn-taking much freer? And what about face-to-face communication amongst hearing individuals – do gestures, gaze, and other body behaviors facilitate turn-taking? One can also ask the phylogenetic question: how did such a system evolve? There seem to be parallels (analogies) in duetting bird species, and in a variety of monkey species, but there is little evidence of anything like this among the great apes. All this constitutes a neglected set of problems at the heart of the psychology of language and of the language sciences. This Research Topic contributes to advancing our understanding of these problems by summarizing recent work from psycholinguists, developmental psychologists, students of dialog and conversation analysis, linguists, phoneticians, and comparative ethologists.




The English Catalogue of Books


Book Description

Volumes for 1898-1968 include a directory of publishers.