Customer Reviews

Looking Backward: 2000-1887

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I greatly enjoyed this book. The fact that it was published in 1888, is mind blowing. It is still very much relevant to today's society. There are ton of great ideas that really make the reader think about. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is open minded to new ideas, a forward looking thinker, and/or interested in the structure of society. This is easily one of my favorite books.

This is a great book and would rate 4-5 stars. However, this version is a 'print on demand' type reprint. The quality of paper is good but the font is very small AND the text is pushed together: there is not much space between lines and there is NO spacing between chapters (where usually it would start on new page). The end result is a great book that is hard to read.

I originally read this book because Isaac Asimov said it was the most boring book he had ever read. In a way he was right. Like "Moby Dick", the book is much more interesting to have read than to read.

The author's purpose was to describe what he thought was the ideal society. Since in 1887 he was living in a society which had resolved seemingly intractable problems like slavery, it seemed to him that a future society might also have solved problems that seemed intractable to his contemporaries.

In his imagined society, there is no conflict. Everyone chooses a job, and in return is assured of the necessities of life.

Perhaps the best way of describing the defects of the book is to note that the author argues that authors should not be part of this system, but should still be capitalists: in other words the socialism he advocates is for OTHER people. This is an easy pattern to recognise: left-wing politicians today send their own children to private schools, but insist that the public schools are perfect for other people's children. Then they get in their chauffeur-driven limosines to go to a meeting to plan to tax impoverished West Virginia coal-miners to pay to extend the Washington metro system on the grounds that other people shouldn't drive cars.

I liked to read this book because it contained very unusual or old words. The structure of the sentences reminded me of an era long gone in which people actually had to write to communicate. Nonetheless, the book serves its purpose by condemning his "present" of the 1880's and praising the future that he wakes up in even though it takes the entire book to do it. The main interest I had with the book is that Mr. West wakes up in the year 2000 and I wanted to see what Bellamy thought about it. Bellamy had no knowledge of cars and, therefore, weren't in the novel. Odd by our standards, but so were the flying cars in 1950's theorists' eyes.

Its also a great novel because it completely changed my way of looking at a socialist utopia. You work for the greater good of everyone and if you don't work then you get tossed out. I like socialism and thought this was a more moderate stance. However, it was a great point to clarify and will hopefully push more into the realm of socialist style government.

If you enjoy a short read, took me about a week due to work schedule that week, then I suggest you read this. His ideas about a modern utopia instead of the monopolistic capitalist exploitative world in the 1880's are wonderful and truly make you see the good in socialism.

This is one of the best books ever written. Timeless. I purchase copies to give to friends.

In "Looking Backward", Bellamy,
gives a compelling metaphor of the economic system of corporate greed where 99% of the countries wealth is controlled by 1%. To repeat 99% of the people enjoy 1% of the wealth where 1% of the greedy control 99%.

Bellamy's "Looking backwards ", written in 1894, advances some very powerful ideas for an alternative economic system that would be very workable with current technology and addresses the problem where 96 billion pounds of food are wasted each year while 12 million children face hunger.

The plot isn't all that original, a man wakes up 100 years in the future to find that things have changed considerably. Much like Rip Van Winkle or The Time Machine, except the narrative is extremely dry and most of the novel is dialogue between the unintentional time traveler and his hosts. It's only 120 pages long, but it took me almost 2 weeks to finish reading it because a couple paragraphs in I would start nodding off. Eventually I found that it was more effective to just skim the book, as I could easily gather the main points hidden in the rambling dialogue.
I don't know why Bellamy didn't just scrap the generic plot and offer a socialist manifesto like Karl Marx or Adolf Hitler. Bellamy's ideas are wonderful, but the narrative sucks. His assumptions about 21st century America are way off. For instance, he imagines that America peacefully gives up its ineffecient capitalist ways and seemlessly takes up socialism. Given the impassioned debates about government run health care, it is proposterous to think that all the gun totting red necks in this country would sit idly by as the government took over everything.
If you really want to experience a compelling, as well as entertaining socialist society I suggest the smurfs.

I read this book at the age of fourteen and ended up scratching my head, wondering, who would ever go along with that? Forty years later this question still persists. This book is not only unoriginal in borrowing its leitmotiv from H. G. Wells and Washington Irving, it completely denies the power and unchanging quality of human nature. Nobody is truly motivated by altruism... for long at least. Altruism always provides a person with a direct benefit that outweighs competing self-centered interests; it might be enhanced self esteem or the esteem of others, standing in the community, etc., but it can't credibly be argued that people will indefinitely suspend self interest or the interest of their loved ones to serve a greater good. Society has never worked that way in good times, and it's every man for himself when food is being rationed. That is why socialism can only be maintained for long at the barrel of a gun. It goes against human nature, it goes against reason, and it goes against every concept of personal liberty.
As an object lesson on the mental disorder that is liberalism however, the book performs admirably. But I suspect this was not the author's intention.

Fast shipping!! Will definitely do business again!! The book was packaged safetly and was in great condition!!