Scholarly Editions: H.G. Wells' World
Brain - Annotated with an Introduction
This annotated
edition of World Brain is meant to stimulate scholars to
return to this giant intellect, a writer who, with only microfiche
to inspire his understanding of the possibilities of communications
technology, imagined a connected and coordinated world sharing
a huge knowledge base.
Wells was
inspired by the needs of a world teetering on the brink of global
war, and eagerly met with Stalin and Roosevelt to learn what they
knew of the peace process. When he found them without advisors,
he turned to the education system only to be dismayed by its derivative
and dismal state.
Finally, Wells
decided that the ordinary citizen would have to teach themselves,
and he turned his considerable mind to the task of how that might
be effected. He
imagined a globally financed encyclopedia, which would be continually
updated by teams of volunteers and would serve the intellectual
needs of the modern citizen.
In these days
of internet technology, H. G. Wells' warnings and imaginings are
more relevant than ever, as in these fever days of incipient nanotechnology,
ghostly quantum effects, and international media system threats
of global conflict, we are increasingly drowning in a sea of information
we can scarcely understand. Wells' synthesis of information delivery
systems, and the competent receiver and producer he imagines at
its centre, has much to offer the modern scholar who is trying
to make the cornucopia of the internet relevant to our changing
world.
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