The Open Conspiracy

Summary

This version of The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution was published in 1928. Apparently Wells knew this would be a temporary version and would stop printing after a year or so. It was rewritten a couple of times between then and 1933 under various other subtitles.

The book is, in Wells' words, a "scheme to thrust forward and establish a human control over the destinies of life and liberate it from its present dangers, uncertainties and miseries. It proposes that largely as the result of scientific progress, a common vision of a world 'politically, socially and economically unified' is emerging among educated and influential people, and that this can be the basis of 'a world revolution aiming at universal peace, welfare and happy activity' that can result in the establishment of a 'world commonwealth'."

Chapter index:

Preface

I. "Necessity of Religion to Human Life"

II. "Subordination of Self the Essence of Religion"

III. "Need for a Restatement of Religion"

IV. "Objective Expression of Modern Religion"

V. "The Frame of the Task Before Mankind, the World Commonweal"

VI. "Broad Characteristics of the World Commonweal"

VII. "No Stable Utopia Is Contemplated"

VIII. "The Open Conspiracy Must Be Heterogeneous"

IX. "Forces and Resistances in the Great Modern Communities Now Prevalent, Which Will Be Antagonistic to the Open Conspiracy"

X. "The Open Conspiracy and the Resistances of the Less Industrialised Peoples"

XI. "Resistances and Antagonistic Forces in Ourselves"

XII. "The Open Conspiracy Must Begin as a Movement of Explanation and Propaganda"

XIII. "Early Constructive Work of the Open Conspiracy"

XIV. "Existing and Developing Movements with Which the Open Conspiracy May Hope to Coalesce"

XV. "The Creative Home, Social Group and School: The Present Waste of Youthful Seriousness"