{"product_id":"2940012405463","title":"THE WORLD SET FREE","description":"PREFACE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE WORLD SET FREE was written in 1913 and published early in 1914, and\u003cbr\u003eit is the latest of a series of three fantasias of possibility, stories\u003cbr\u003ewhich all turn on the possible developments in the future of some\u003cbr\u003econtemporary force or group of forces. The World Set Free was written\u003cbr\u003eunder the immediate shadow of the Great War. Every intelligent person in\u003cbr\u003ethe world felt that disaster was impending and knew no way of averting\u003cbr\u003eit, but few of us realised in the earlier half of 1914 how near the\u003cbr\u003ecrash was to us. The reader will be amused to find that here it is put\u003cbr\u003eoff until the year 1956. He may naturally want to know the reason for\u003cbr\u003ewhat will seem now a quite extraordinary delay. As a prophet, the author\u003cbr\u003emust confess he has always been inclined to be rather a slow prophet.\u003cbr\u003eThe war aeroplane in the world of reality, for example, beat the\u003cbr\u003eforecast in Anticipations by about twenty years or so. I suppose a\u003cbr\u003edesire not to shock the sceptical reader's sense of use and wont and\u003cbr\u003eperhaps a less creditable disposition to hedge, have something to do\u003cbr\u003ewith this dating forward of one's main events, but in the particular\u003cbr\u003ecase of The World Set Free there was, I think, another motive in holding\u003cbr\u003ethe Great War back, and that was to allow the chemist to get well\u003cbr\u003eforward with his discovery of the release of atomic energy. 1956--or for\u003cbr\u003ethat matter 2056--may be none too late for that crowning revolution in\u003cbr\u003ehuman potentialities. And apart from this procrastination of over forty\u003cbr\u003eyears, the guess at the opening phase of the war was fairly lucky; the\u003cbr\u003eforecast of an alliance of the Central Empires, the opening campaign\u003cbr\u003ethrough the Netherlands, and the despatch of the British Expeditionary\u003cbr\u003eForce were all justified before the book had been published six months.\u003cbr\u003eAnd the opening section of Chapter the Second remains now, after the\u003cbr\u003ereality has happened, a fairly adequate diagnosis of the essentials of\u003cbr\u003ethe matter. One happy hit (in Chapter the Second, Section 2), on which\u003cbr\u003ethe writer may congratulate himself, is the forecast that under modern\u003cbr\u003econditions it would be quite impossible for any great general to emerge\u003cbr\u003eto supremacy and concentrate the enthusiasm of the armies of either\u003cbr\u003eside. There could be no Alexanders or Napoleons. And we soon heard the\u003cbr\u003escientific corps muttering, 'These old fools,' exactly as it is here\u003cbr\u003eforetold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese, however, are small details, and the misses in the story far\u003cbr\u003eoutnumber the hits. It is the main thesis which is still of interest\u003cbr\u003enow; the thesis that because of the development of scientific knowledge,\u003cbr\u003eseparate sovereign states and separate sovereign empires are no longer\u003cbr\u003epossible in the world, that to attempt to keep on with the old system\u003cbr\u003eis to heap disaster upon disaster for mankind and perhaps to destroy\u003cbr\u003eour race altogether. The remaining interest of this book now is the\u003cbr\u003esustained validity of this thesis and the discussion of the possible\u003cbr\u003eending of war on the earth. I have supposed a sort of epidemic of sanity\u003cbr\u003eto break out among the rulers of states and the leaders of mankind. I\u003cbr\u003ehave represented the native common sense of the French mind and of\u003cbr\u003ethe English mind--for manifestly King Egbert is meant to be 'God's\u003cbr\u003eEnglishman'--leading mankind towards a bold and resolute effort of\u003cbr\u003esalvage and reconstruction. Instead of which, as the school book\u003cbr\u003efootnotes say, compare to-day's newspaper. Instead of a frank and\u003cbr\u003ehonourable gathering of leading men, Englishman meeting German and\u003cbr\u003eFrenchman Russian, brothers in their offences and in their disaster,\u003cbr\u003eupon the hills of Brissago, beheld in Geneva at the other end of\u003cbr\u003eSwitzerland a poor little League of (Allied) Nations (excluding the\u003cbr\u003eUnited States, Russia, and most of the 'subject peoples' of the world),\u003cbr\u003emeeting obscurely amidst a world-wide disregard to make impotent\u003cbr\u003egestures at the leading problems of the debacle. Either the disaster has\u003cbr\u003enot been vast enough yet or it has not been swift enough to inflict the\u003cbr\u003enecessary moral shock and achieve the necessary moral revulsion. Just as\u003cbr\u003ethe world of 1913 was used to an increasing prosperity and thought that\u003cbr\u003eincrease would go on for ever, so now it would seem the world is growing\u003cbr\u003eaccustomed to a steady glide towards social disintegration, and thinks\u003cbr\u003ethat that too can go on continually and never come to a final bump.\u003cbr\u003eSo soon do use and wont establish themselves, and the most flaming and\u003cbr\u003ethunderous of lessons pale into disregard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe question whether a Leblanc is still possible, the question whether\u003cbr\u003eit is still possible to bring about an outbreak of creative sanity in\u003cbr\u003emankind, to avert this steady glide to destruction, is now one of the\u003cbr\u003emost urgent in the world.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47177634218224,"sku":"2940012405463","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012405463_p0.jpg?v=1763568260","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012405463","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}