asides Shelley, Verne and Gernsback considered to be one of 19th parents of "science-fiction" genre

a “social scientist in fiction”: stories as thought experiments about planned futures and world government.

A Modern Utopia (1905): a parallel Earth with a liberal World State, free movement, “Order of Samurai” ...

The Shape of Things to Come (1933): “history from the future” where global war leads to a technocratic “Air Dictatorship” unifying the planet.

1938 CBS inscenation of "War of the Worlds" causes panic

Ambivalence: Wells’ utopias blend emancipation (education, science, world peace) with problematic ideas (eugenics, paternalism, colonialism, dog-free societies).

Legacy: Wells’ world-state imaginaries anticipate later notions of the UN, technocracy, the “world brain,” and global planning.

George Orwell / Eric Arthur Blair born in British India, grew up in England, from 1922–1927 served in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (Myanmar), an experience that filled him with guilt and disgust for colonial repression

lived among the poor in London and Paris, documenting homelessness and low-wage labor

fought in the Spanish Civil War with the POUM militia; being hunted by Stalinist forces radicalized his anti-totalitarian worldview

During WWII he worked for the BBC Eastern Service; not an MI5 agent but provided opinions about suspected communists to the Information Research Department

Animal Farm (1945) - an allegory of Soviet Union: a fable where revolutionary ideals decay into tyranny under the pigs’ rule

one of the most important anglosaxxon intellectuals of 1st half of 20th century

first schooling by his own mother Julia (departure letter: "Judge not too much and love more"), later Eton, Oxford etc.

first very much empiricist & rationalist (grandson of Thomas Huxley, influence of Lord Russell & Whitehead)

later turn towards spirituality, mysticism (influence of Vedanta - Ramakrishna & Krishmamurti lineages)

in last decade of his life one of the biggest proponents of usage of entheogenic & psychedelic substances for welfare of mankind

died on the same day as JFK and C.S.Lewis; last instruction to his 2nd wife Laura: "LSD 100µg intramuscular.”