Looking Backward

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A staple of Progressive Era utopian novels Edward Ballamy's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Looking Backward</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> follows young Julian West after he wakes up in the future to a society founded on humanist and scientific principles. Work is efficient and fair industry is owned by the federal government and goods are distributed equally. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Looking Backward</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> written in 1888 eerily predicts many modern comforts and consumer innovations now taken for granted. The novel became a cult hit among America's intellectuals with 162 'Bellamy Clubs' founded in America alone and influencing socialist and Progressive thought. Nonetheless many of its ideals may leave a bad taste in a modern reader's mouth. George Orwell's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>1984</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> served as a direct counter to Bellamy's state-utopia. Even in a post-Stalin world </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Looking Backward</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> endures as a thought-provoking experiment deserving to be debated for its merits and shortcomings alike.</span></p>