A Brief History
On June 8, 1949, the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by English writer Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, was published, telling a story of a dystopian future where an intrusive government controls all, sees all, and wages never ending war.
Digging Deeper
Modeled after the regimes of the USSR under Stalin and Germany under Adolf Hitler, the novel terrified a generation about the dangers of big government and what the future might hold. Politicians and others often referred to the work in an effort to prevent the creep of government power.
Some other novels that have shaped public opinion and the trajectory of history include:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an 1852 story of life in slavery in the Antebellum US that molded a negative public perception of slavery.
And Atlas Shrugged, the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand that became a rallying work for capitalists.
Bonus: The Turner Diaries, a 1978 work by Andrew Macdonald that has become the right wing/militia movement guidebook.
Question for students (and subscribers): What novel would you add to this list? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Orwell, George. 1984 Animal Farm – SET OF TWO BOOKS. Öteki Adam, 2020.
Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Signet, 1996.
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