LOOKING BACKWARD
From 2000 to 1887

by Edward Bellamy






AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston,
December 26, 2000


Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century,
enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and
logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no
doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely
historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in
its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is,
however, better established than that till nearly the end of the
nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient
industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was
destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of
time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so
prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken
place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an
interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as