The Outline of History
''The Outline of History'', subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a work by H. G. Wells chronicling the history of the world from the origin of the Earth to the First World War. It appeared ...
'' (1919–1920) and ''
The Science of Life
''The Science of Life'' is a book written by H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G. P. Wells, published in three volumes by The Waverley Publishing Company Ltd in 1929–30, giving a popular account of all major aspects of biology as known in the 1 ...
'' (1929). Wells conceived of the three parts of his trilogy as, respectively, "a survey of history, of the science of life, and of existing conditions." Intended as an unprecedented "picture of all mankind to-day" in all its manifold activities, he called it "the least finished work . . . because it is the most novel." He hoped the volumes would play a role in the open conspiracy to establish a progressive world government that he had been promoting since the mid-1920s.
Genesis and reception
Wells had great difficulty devising a comprehensive book discussing the world's economic life from a psychological point of view. ''The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind'' had at various times more than a dozen working titles (such as ''The Anatomy of Money''). As in ''The Science of Life'', Wells worked with collaborators. Hugh P. Vowles and Edmund Cressey agreed to work with him on the book in 1928, but Vowles's work did not satisfy Wells. A bitter wrangle ensued in which the Society of Authors became involved, to Wells's chagrin. In early 1929 he overcame the discouragement these difficulties caused and resumed work on the book, with the help of Amber Reeves on the sections on money and economics and of
Alexander Carr-Saunders
Sir Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders, (14 January 1886 – 6 October 1966) was an English biologist, sociologist, academic, and academic administrator. He was Director of the London School of Economics from 1937 to 1957.
Early life
Carr-Saunder ...
on demography.
Odette Keun
Odette Zoé Keun (Pera, 10 September 1888 – Worthing, 14 March 1978) was a Dutch socialist, journalist and writer, who traveled extensively in Europe, including the Caucasus and the early Soviet Union.
Early years
Keun was the daughter of ...
, Wells's lover from 1924 to 1933, served as the work's general editor. Graham Wallas also offered substantial assistance.
''The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind'' sold relatively well (17,000 copies in England in the first month alone). But the
Great depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
restrained sales and Wells's optimistic utopianism struck many as passé and naïve in the increasingly violent political climate of the 1930s. When published in the United States in 1936, the book was retitled ''The Outline of Man's Work and Wealth''.
Organization of work
''The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind'' is divided into sixteen chapters following an introduction explaining the work's conception. The historical development of human mastery over matter and energy occupies Chapters 1–3. Chapter 4 is on agriculture, Chapter 5 on clothing and shelter. Chapter 6 describes the distribution of goods and Chapter 7 the organisation of work. Chapter 8 offers an original analysis of the psychology of work. Chapters 9 and 10 analyse money, finance, and economic inequality. Chapter 11 is devoted to the social and economic role of women. Chapter 12 depicts government and the military. Chapter 13 discusses the problem of races, rejecting segregation, racism, and eugenics. Chapter 14 discusses sport, art, and entertainment. Chapter 15 analyses problems of religion, education, and social discipline. Chapter 16 addresses the future prospects of humanity.
Two historical figures are praised near the beginning and the end of ''The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind'' because they seem to Wells to be essentially linked to his enterprise:
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon (; la, Rogerus or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiri ...
, a precursor of the
Enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
, and
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...
, the first writer to envision the possibilities of modern encyclopaedias.
Overarching themes
Economics is grounded in biology and psychology
Humans are "economic animals" because they prepare and store food socially. This important development occurred in the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
, when man "became very rapidly indeed an unprecedented species." For Wells, the adaptation of the "very imperfect instrument" of the human mind to new and developing possibilities is the essence of humanity's economic problem.
Satisfying the demands of the persona is the fundamental human enterprise
Wells endorses
Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
's concept of the persona, which he regards as susceptible of education. "Beneath the material processes of economics lies the social idea; its driving force is will. The clearer the idea, the better organized the will in the personas of our species, the more hopeful and successful the working of the human ant-hill."
Wells proposes that there are three fundamental types of persona that differ in many ways, but in particular in their attitude toward
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
: (1) the peasant; (2) the nomad; (3) the priest. "The first type is acquisitive, tenacious, and preservative; the second is rapacious and consumes; the third professes to be more or less aloof from possession and gain, and to carry on the service of the community for satisfaction of a quite different type." Wells seriously entertains the proposal of Frederick Soddy that the "money manipulator" may be "a new type whose primary delight is domination and oppression through relative gain" but concludes that if this is so, "the conception pervading this book . . . is unsound" and " ere is nothing for it but . . . a class war against the rich and the able . . . and beginning again upon a different ground plan, with whatever hope is left to us, amidst the ruins."
The stupidity of contemporary political institutions
Wells's treatment of contemporary political institutions is aggressively satirical, but he attributes their shortcomings to their need to accommodate the biological heritage human beings have inherited to solve the problem of what he calls "assent," or legitimation.
The importance of education
What hope Wells has for the prospects of humanity rests primarily on human educability. "Every human being is to some extent an educable creature." Religion's social role has been to a large degree educational; moreover, " ucation has been the last field of intellectual activity to pass out of religious control, and it is still imperfectly and doubtfully released." Wells has doubts about the role played by universities, attached as they are to religious institutions and wealthy interests. But he has high hopes for extra-scholastic education, including newspapers, literature, and encyclopaedias. Ultimately he hopes for "a recasting of
he world's
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
schools to meet the needs of a new education," helped or controlled by "a world government."H.G. Wells, ''The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind'' (London: William Heinemann, 1932), p. 777.
Translations
The book was translated in German in 1932, with the title ''Arbeit, Wohlstand und das Glück der Menschheit''.
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...