Books: 2040 A.D.

THE FIRST To AWAKEN—Granville Hicks with Richard M. Bennett—Modern Age ($2.50).

In the wave of socialist, reformist thinking that swept the western U.S. farm country and the Knights of Labor after the Civil War, two notable fantasies of the future were written. Caesar's Column, by that stanch Populist orator and Baconian, Ignatius Donnelly, depicted the late 20th Century as an extravaganza of what is now called Fascism, only in ancient stage Roman costume. Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy, gave readers in 1888 a more plausible picture of a future State Socialism which in technological details at least...