The Common Sense of War and Peace

By H.G. Wells

This book is a detailed analysis of war within which Wells explores why the Second World War was being fought, what would happen when it ended, what aims should be set, and the possibility of a future where humanity doesn't destroy itself through war. A fascinating and thought-provoking treatise, "The Common Sense of War and Peace" will appeal to those with an interest in WWII and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of H. G. Wells work. Contents include: "Grown Men Do Not Need Leaders", "Can Any Peace Be Made Now?", "What Are We Fighting For?", "Only World Revolution Can End War", "The Blue Swastika and the Religion of the Rentier", "The Triple Choice", "What Federation Means And May Mean", "War in the Air and After", "The Puerility of Current Federal Union Schemes", "The Provisional Declaration of Rights", et cetera. Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author. First published in 1940.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473345225

H.G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) wrote the science fiction classics The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds, and has often been heralded as a father of modern science fiction.

Book preview

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THE COMMON SENSE

OF WAR AND PEACE

WORLD REVOLUTION

OR WAR UNENDING

By

H. G. Wells

Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library

Contents

H. G. Wells

§ 1. GROWN MEN DO NOT NEED LEADERS

§ 2. CAN ANY PEACE BE MADE NOW?

§ 3. WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

§ 4. ONLY WORLD REVOLUTION CAN END WAR

§ 5. THE BLUE SWASTIKA AND THE RELIGION OF THE RENTIER

§ 6. THE TRIPLE CHOICE

§ 7. WHAT FEDERATION MEANS AND MAY MEAN

§ 8. WAR IN THE AIR AND AFTER

§ 9. THE PUERILITY OF CURRENT FEDERAL UNION SCHEMES

§ 10. THE PROVISIONAL DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

§ 11. AN OPPOSITION IS THE ESSENCE OF DEMOCRACY

§ 12. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD REVOLUTION

§ 13. THAT NEW WORLD AFTER THE WAR

§ 14. A LESSON FROM 1918

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England in 1866. He apprenticed as a draper before becoming a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School in West Sussex. Some years later, Wells won a scholarship to the School of Science in London, where he developed a strong interest in biology and evolution, founding and editing the Science Schools Journal. However, he left before graduating to return to teaching, and began to focus increasingly on writing. His first major essay on science, ‘The Rediscovery of the Unique’, appeared in 1891. However, it was in 1895 that Wells seriously established himself as a writer, with the publication of the now iconic novel, The Time Machine.

Wells followed The Time Machine with the equally well-received War of the Worlds (1898), which proved highly popular in the USA, and was serialized in the magazine Cosmopolitan. Around the turn of the century, he also began to write extensively on politics, technology and the future, producing works The Discovery of the Future (1902) and Mankind in the Making (1903). An active socialist, in 1904 Wells joined the Fabian Society, and his 1905 book A Modern Utopia presented a vision of a socialist society founded on reason and compassion. Wells also penned a range of successful comic novels, such as Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910).

Wells’ 1920 work, The Outline of History, was penned in response to the Russian Revolution, and declared that world would be improved by education, rather than revolution. It made Wells one of the most important political thinkers of the twenties and thirties, and he began to write for a number of journals and newspapers, even travelling to Russia to lecture Lenin and Trotsky on social reform. Appalled by the carnage of World War II, Wells began to work on a project dealing with the perils of nuclear war, but died before completing it. He is now regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time, and an important political thinker.

Mr. Wells' job is to think. He has been doing it now for nearly half a century, and it is disturbing to see how often he has been right. In this book he has been thinking about the war-why we are fighting, what will happen when it is over, what practical aims we can set ourselves, and how we can still look forward to organising a world in which wars will not perpetually recur until the human race has bombed itself out of existence. He believes that it is stiIl possible, but only if we throw over many of our old prejudices,. and make clear at once the principles on which we intend to act.

§ 1. GROWN MEN DO NOT NEED LEADERS

FOR the greater part of my life I have given most of my working time to the problem of the§§ human future, studying the possibility of a world-wide reorganisation of human society that might avert the menace of defeat and extinction that hangs over our species. That has been my leading preoccupation since I published  The Time Machine  in 1893. I have never thought, much less have I asserted, that progress was inevitable, though numerous people chose to fancy that about me. I have always maintained that by a strenuous effort mankind might defeat the impartial destructiveness of nature, but I have always insisted that only by incessant hard thinking and a better co-ordination of man's immense but dispersed powers of self-sacrifice and heroism was such a victory possible.

Since the present crisis began to develop I have done everything I could, to focus the thinking of a lifetime upon the stormy clashes of to-day. I have studied and spoken and written and published, to get reality clear in my own and as many minds as possible. In this little book I am trying again to assemble the essential truth about what is happening, as concisely and clearly as possible. This is, to the best of my ability, a map of where we are and how we can go. Not only where we are, I repeat, but how we can go. I am writing it down without exhortation or any emotional appeal. That, if you want It, you must seek elsewhere. If you are one of those who  prefer  to go On with life with a magic talisman in your hand instead of a map, this book is not for you. But if you like to carry a blessed image or a mascot in your pocket I will not quarrel with you, if only you have the sense to rely upon the map instead of trying to muddle your way through when the bearings of the situation are plain.

Since I began to learn about the direction of human affairs, I have been much afilicted by would-be disciples and followers. Before I took my own measure I did occasionally entangle myself with groups of people who proposed to take possession of me, interpret me and make something between a figure-head and a leader of me. These entanglements taught me one thing very clearly, that leadership is entirely incompatible with the clear and critical apprehension of how things are and where things are, which is the natural activity of such a mind as mine. You might just as well expect a chart and compass to steer a ship. I found out very early in life, not only that I could not manage people, but that I disliked in about equal measure the concessions and deceptions that are involved in managing anyone, and the tiresome people who obliged me to make those politic adjustments of the truth necessary to keep them in tow. I despise driven sheep, I despise dogs tha.t fawn upon me, I despise followers and disciples, I despIse the simple faith and unquestioning loyalty of human beings who ought, I feel, to think and act for themselves instead of sacrificing the brief opportumtIes this life affords them of being real.

Read me, I would say, use all I have to give you, assimilate me to yourself (and assimilation may very well mean a digestive change and improvement) and we will go on together in fraternal co-operation, but please, please, do not imagine you are being invited to line up behind me. You have a backbone and a brain; your brain is as important as mine and probably better at most jobs; my only claim on your consideration is that I have specialised in trying to get my Outlines true.

That is the spirit in which I call myself a republican, a democrat and an adult man.

It is a biological truism that the majority of our species retains infantile characteristics throughout life; most men and women never grow up at all. Most animals settle down, but human beings can play and be curious at seventy. Men and women of eighty can die young. This has its good but also its profoundly enfeebling side, if you remain not young but infantile. Most of our kind pass from the knee of mothers, who tell them what and how, to the schoolmaster or mistress, the priest, the big boys (or girls) in the school, their caste, the employer, the political adventurer, all telling them what and how before they are allowed a sceptical moment. Directly they come to the frustrations and distresses of our disordered social life, leadership touts for them, exploits them and enslaves them. We have now in Mein Kampf a complete expose of the art of leadership, and in the stricken lands of the great offensive, we have seen these poor methodical, gullible, German lout-sheep pouring forward in their multitudes to destroy horribly or be destroyed. It is like a flight of locusts; it is a stampede. One has to kill them or be killed, because reason would be wasted on them.

In Britain, America, France and what are called the sroaner democratic countries, we have a number of more or less ridiculous figures proposing themselves for leadership after the fashion of Mussolini and Hitler. Every antic of these masters is aped. But there is in all our countries, thanks to certain accidents of