Looking Backward

2000-1887

Recommended by Chan Koonchung, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #35 in Utopian

Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward: 2000-1887' remains the most successful and influential Utopian novel written by an American writer. At the end of the 19th century, Bellamy creates a picture of a wonderful future society. Bellamy's protagonist is Julian West, a young aristocratic Bostonian who falls into a deep sleep while under a hypnotic trance in 1887 and ends up waking up in the year 2000 (hence the novel's sub-title). Finding himself a century in the future in the home of Doctor Leete, West is introduced to an amazing society, which is consistently contrasted with the time from which... more

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Chan Koonchung This book came out early, in the 19th century. It’s set in America, where a future socialist state will solve or eradicate all the ills of society of late 19th century American capitalism. (Source)


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