World Brain

by H.G. Wells

In 1937, H. G. Wells proposed a predigital, freely available World Encyclopedia to represent a civilization-saving World Brain.

In a series of talks and essays in 1937, H. G. Wells proselytized for what he called a World Brain, as manifested in a World Encyclopedia--a repository of scientifically established knowledge--that would spread enlightenment around the world and lead to world peace. Wells, known to readers today as the author of The War of the Worlds and other science fiction classics, was imagining something like a predigital Wikipedia. The World Encyclopedia would provide a summary of verified reality (in about forty volumes); it would be widely available, free of copyright, and utilize the latest technology.

Of course, as Bruce Sterling points out in the foreword to this edition of Wells's work, the World Brain didn't happen; the internet did. And yet, Wells anticipated aspects of the internet, envisioning the World Brain as a technical system of networked knowledge (in Sterling's words, a hypothetical super-gadget). Wells's optimism about the power of information might strike readers today as na�vely utopian, but possibly also inspirational.

Genres: Science Fiction, Classics

194 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).

Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.

He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.

More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...

http://www.online-literature.com/well...

http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today, we mostly remember H. G. Wells as a writer of science fiction, but he was a prolific non-fiction author (not to mention penning comic/romantic novels such as The History of Mister Polly, which became Half a Sixpence as a film). To those used to his tightly crafted science fiction, the non-fiction can be distinctly disappointing. In its day, some of it was very popular, but now it comes across as turgid and mannered. But this little book, which I'd never seen before, is a bit lighter on the reader, in part because its main content is a series of speeches on a concept that some suggest prefigures Wikipedia - there's an element of truth in that, but Wells' intent was much broader.

While I hadn't come across the speeches that are pulled together in World Brain, I was aware of the suggestion that Vannevar Bush's 1930s memex concept was a sort of precursor of hypertext based on the then hot new technology of microfilm. Wells is also influenced by the ability of microfilm to provide an information revolution in developing his concept of a 'World Encyclopaedia'.

Each of the five main sections of this very short book (not published in this form in Wells' day) is made up of the text of a speech based on different slices of Wells' overall vision. At its heart was an encyclopaedia of all modern knowledge that would be constantly updated by thousands of experts. But behind the technology was the vision of Wells the internationalist, who believed the nation state must pass away to bring world peace and felt that universal access to the truth would enable the uneducated masses to move towards this goal. (He is, admittedly very vague as to how this transition would take place.)

If the book was just this it would get pretty tedious, but what is particularly interesting is the way every section, each a speech that was given to a different body, takes on a distinctly different flavour. As well as the goal of intellectually hauling up the masses to move beyond their petty nationalism, in one section we see the imagined encyclopaedia mechanism as a way for professionals to share information, in another we see Wells devising a universal system for a fact-based part of the school curriculum, as he felt that the whole education system was in need of an overhaul (aspects of his criticisms still apply to the way we teach today).

Although we can enthusiastically support Wells' pacifist goals - the book pulls together speeches he gave in the lead up to the Second World War - there is no doubt that with hindsight we can also discover a deep naivety in his vision. The idea that his World Encyclopaedia would contain the true facts about everything from history to physics inevitably now begs the question 'Whose truth?' Even physics has plenty of dispute (what would Wells' truth be between dark matter and MOND, for example?). But the idea that anyone could agree on a 'true facts' version of history would surely have seemed a fantasy even to someone sharing the then seventy-year-old Wells' idealism. For that matter the underlying assumption that simply making information available to everyone would enable massive political transformation to take place was one that even then must have seemed more than a little over-optimistic.

This is a not a particularly easy little book to read, but for anyone with an interest in how the modern Information Age has shaped our world - and how that might have been anticipated in the 1930s - not to mention those who are doubtful about the way we teach our children - this is a text that is worth perusing.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first encountered this book published in 1938 by way of the documentary film, "Google and the World Brain." The film casts a disparaging light on the Google Book initiative (at the very least, you should ask permission from authors if you want to digitize and profit from their books). The film includes footage of H. G. Wells discussing his idea of the "world brain" that could help all of us be better informed and better thinkers.

Not being familiar with the book, I went looking for a copy. Have to admit I was surprised to learn my public library still had a circulating copy. When I picked it up, I was even more surprised that the spine indicated this copy was older than I was, with date stamps going back to 1955!

But you're really interested in what the book is about. This is a collection of articles and speeches written in 1936-37 focused on the idea of a noncommercial "World Encyclopedia." At this time, authoritarian systems were on the rise, and democracy seemed to be failing in the wake of the Great Depression. Wells believed that democracy wasn't working because people weren't educated enough to govern. Wells was, of course, a middle-class product of the rigid British class system.

Reading this book some 75 years later, you feel like he's predicting Wikipedia (with experts writing the drafts instead of you and me), not Google so much. You'll also find some familiar attacks on the quality of the teaching corps, along with amazement that teachers stick together when attacked.

"World Brain" is worth tracking down. I wonder if Google Books has it?

[David Macpherson · Rating 3 out of 5]

HG Wells sketched out the internet and WIkipedia before Al Gore was born. It had some nice ideas, but it was more a curio than something that really engaged me.

[Skyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fascinating collection of lectures from H.G. Wells. I, like others I see reviewing this book, learned about it from a documentary entitled Google and the World Brain. Looking back on H.G. Wells' lectures, it's fascinating to see how far we've come as a society, and how little. Written before WWII, Wells speaks on something very similar to what would become the internet. Some things are out of his thinking, list modes of distribution, being that the idea of ones and zeros and digital systems had yet to be invented. He speaks on the transferring of every book into microfilm and how one could sit at his desk in the future and read any book on microfilm. It's very prophetic. Wells also examines the failing school system, how much time is devoted to learning what, and how we as a society of English speakers should better our learning. I couldn't put this book down, and found it completely enveloping. I checked out a first edition via interlibrary loan and should should do the same!

[Jerin Tahapary]

I critique not the wonders of Wells’ works won, but his copycat concomitants, who will eventually and inevitably politicize (by un-Humboldtian means) his World Brain vision(pure) through a technological technique(applied) throughout worlds(information revolution-explosion).

Its ‘’pure’ ‘applied’’ distinction lies whence incessant strife supplies..

So against that, I shall state a defense —
that Sturgeon’s Law, n’sync with each ’s own spiritual simple-self solves this so sweetly.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind."

"The whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual."

Damnit, Wells, you've done it again.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not exactly a page turner, the concepts he talks about are interesting. He basically was advocating for a world encyclopedia that would be updated often. It would not be a static thing, and would include more true world knowledge. When you consider that he was talking about this in 1937, you can see that the concept was truly ahead of its time.

[Peter Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting idea of world government partly by encylopedia - I wonder what Wells would have thought about Wikipedia!