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Brave New World


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A novel by A. Huxley, published 1932.

It is a dystopian fable about a world state in the 7th cent. af (after Ford), where social stability is based on a scientific caste system. Human beings, graded from highest intellectuals to lowest manual workers, hatched from incubators and brought up in communal nurseries, learn by methodical conditioning to accept their social destiny. The action of the story develops round Bernard Marx, an unorthodox and therefore unhappy Alpha‐Plus (something had presumably gone wrong with his antenatal treatment), who visits a New Mexican Reservation and brings a Savage back to London. The Savage is at first fascinated by the new world, but finally revolted, and his argument with Mustapha Mond, World Controller, demonstrates the incompatibility of individual freedom and a scientifically trouble‐free society.

In Brave New World Revisited (1958) Huxley reconsiders his prophecies and fears that some of these may be coming true much sooner than he thought.

Subjects: Literature


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Aldous Huxley (1894—1963) writer