Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887

In 1887, Julian West, a wealthy Bostonian plagued by insomnia, falls into a mysterious deep sleep and awakens in the year 2000 to find his world utterly transformed. The grinding poverty, brutal labor struggles, and grotesque inequality of late nineteenth-century America have been replaced by a society where cooperation has replaced competition, and the means of production serve all citizens rather than a privileged few. Through his conversations with the kindly Dr. Leete and his daughter Edith, West learns how this great change came about, and gradually comes to see his own time as a barbaric age of unnecessary suffering. Originally published in 1888, this electrifying vision of a peaceful, prosperous future became one of the most influential novels in American history, inspiring real political movements and shaping the way generations imagined social progress. It remains a fascinating artifact of Victorian optimism and a provocation to every reader who wonders whether another world is possible.