Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that as long as nation-states hold ideological purchase over bordered territories, the task of utopia remains to renegotiate, subvert, and transcend national discourse with a view to bringing forth alternate places. It investigates how Wells envisages the World State at once to outgrow national discourse and retain the traces of England therein. The book explores varied versions of the World State, as well as tracing how individual writers’ response to modernity marks a shift from disavowal to retrieval of England. It examines said processes in the light of personal memory, contemporary politics, and modern technology. The book analyses H. G. Wells uses of locomotion, science, and psychoanalysis as means whereby he annihilates the spatio-temporal distance between England and utopia. It proposes Aldous Huxley’s retrieval of national discourse as a way of salvaging England from the abuses in the World State.