…ril 2013. 1924: Daedalus, or Science and the Future by J. B. S. Haldane Icarus, or the Future of Science by Bertrand Russell Tantalus, or the Future of Man by F. C. S. Schiller Lysistrata, or Woman’s Future and Future Woman by Anthony M. Ludovici The Passing of the Phantoms: A Study of Evolutionary Psychology and Morals by C. J. Patten The Mongol in our Midst: a Study of Man and his Three Faces by F. G. Crookshank Narcissus: An Anatomy of Clothes…
…lt on part of ruined Holborn! All of London’s railway stations are being redesigned; young Harry has entered his design for the new Victoria Station in ‘the big contest run by the British National Railways Corporation’. The King and Queen recently opened the ‘South London Art Palace’, which has been popularly dubbed the Crystal Palace (‘Queer how London customs cling!’). Bob closes by reflecting that the best legacy of the war is ‘the continuation…
…of us knowing more about how to fly. Then there’s a section on the actual design, construction and assembly process (including the necessary and sensible compromises with modern OHS requirements: the replica has at least ten times the number of instruments as the original did). There follows a vivid account of the first flight by the test pilot (a retired air vice-marshal, no less). On top of all that Bristol Boxkites at Point Cook is profusely i…
…ous dislocation caused by the knock-out blow: “How long will it be before brutes, like our late lamented friend whom the Russian killed behind there, begin to talk of killing some that the rest may survive? It is a euphemism for plain cannibalism invented by Pierce, the Tasmanian bushranger.” “You don’t think that would ever happen in England? I doubt it myself.” “I am sure it will. Did you ever read the life of Pierce? He took to it in four days….
…ome unfit to endure the severities of its bracing atmosphere. It was also true, in that country, that the counsels of the birth-restrictionists, openly proclaimed, had befouled, at its very threshold, the ideals of natural marriage. But human degradation sank here in a lower slough. And if they would subject their own people to a tyranny so absolute, an inquisition so coarse and vile, with what scorpions would they be likely to chastise the alien…
…antasy is very much of its time: it was published in the very month of the Russian blockade of Berlin. Newman’s heroes find a way around the frustrating limitations of the new United Nations, with, in the background, the emergence of the super-power blocs and the omniscience of the atomic scientists all playing their part. As it happens, I own another book by Newman (who wrote many), Armoured Doves: A Peace Novel (London: Jarrolds, 1937 [1931]), a…
…and perhaps to others. The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it,…
…istory-teaching by replacing narrow nationalist by a general review of the human record; Russia in the Shadows, 1920; The Salvaging of Civilization, 1921; The Secret Places of the Heart; Washington and the Hope of Peace; A Short History of the World, 1922; Men like Gods, 1923; The Story of a Great Schoolmaster (F. W. Sanderson); The Dream, 1924; A Year of Prophesying, 1924; Christina Alberta’s Father, 1925; Collected Works (Atlantic edition), 1925…
…the planet Venus should deceive thousands of Britons, up to the 5th of February, and stop her deceptions abruptly upon that date, and then abruptly resume deceptions upon the 21st, in places at a distance apart. These circumstances oppose the idea of collective hallucinations, by which some writers in the newspapers tried to explain. If they were hallucinations, the hallucinations renewed collectively, upon the 21st, in towns one hundred miles ap…
…They are the majority on the earth. It touches them more closely. The instrument is in their hands.6 There are some instruments so terrible that mankind has resolved not to use them. I happen to know myself of at least three inventions deliberately proposed for use in the last War and which were never used. Potent to a degree and, indeed, I wondered at the conscience of the world. If the conscience of the young men will ever come to feel that in…
