H.G. Wells as a Historian

The purpose of this research is to examine the stature and significance of H.G. Wells as a historian. The plan of the research will be to set forth the principal characteristics of Wells's approach to history, and then to provide evidence that assesses the impact that Wells has had on the presentation of history to the culture. This paper will seek to show that that impact has not been inconsiderable, inasmuch as he appears to have been an important figure in making history accessible to the mass market. Further, as a writer who came to the discipline of writing history with certain cultural predispositions and attitudes, Wells will be seen to have exercised influence on the way history can be at once popularized and made meaningful within the context of social commentary and criticism on one hand, and the conveyance of generally reliable information on the other.

Until 1919, H.G. Wells's literary reputation rested upon imaginative fictionscience fictionthat predicted fantastic societies and scientific developments such as air travel, time travel, social utopias, and world destruction through cataclysmic wars. In 1919, however, his Outline of History appeared, which was a general survey of the emergence of western civilization from the time of prehistory to the thencurrent period. In an evaluation of Wells's status as a historian, John Barker connects Wells's two careers as novelist and historian as representing a unified attitude toward the past, present, and future

Related Essays

HG Wells as a Historian The purpose of this research is to examine the stature and significance of HG Wells as a historian. The plan of the research will .... (3204 13 )

The Histories of Herodutus .... Hamilton sees Herodotus as "the historian of the glorious fight for liberty in which the Greeks conquered the overwhelming power of Persia .... Wells, HG (1971). .... (3143 13 )

Intermingling of Races in Early Civilizations .... those said to be Semitic (ie, Arabs and Jews) and African Negroes, as well as the evidence from the Roman historian Tacitus of .... Wells, HG The Outline of History .... (4169 17 )

Black/White History & Human Evolution .... those said to be Semitic (ie, Arabs and Jews) and African Negroes, as well as the evidence from the Roman historian Tacitus of .... Wells, HG The Outline of History .... (4170 17 )

Alexander The Great .... Military historian EW Marsden describes the art of war as fought by Alexander and Darius: It is difficult to re-create the .... Wells, HG The Outline of History. .... (5786 23 )

Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1962; Bantam Books, 1980. 5. __________. The Proud Tower. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966; Bantam Books, 1967. 6. Wells, H.G. "Preface." The Complete Science Fiction Treasury of H.G. Wells. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932; Avenel Books, 1978. 7. __________. The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. Vol. 1. Revised and Brought up to Date by Raymond Postgate and G.P. Wells. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971. 8. __________. The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. Revised and Brought up to Date by Raymond Postgate and G.P. Wells. Vol. 2. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971. The purpose of this research is to examine the treatment of history as a philosophical and cultural discipline by Friedrich Nietzsche. The plan of the research will be to set forth the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of Nietzsche's view of history and then to discuss the impact that Nietzsche as a philosopher of history may have had on subsequent treatments of historical investigation and upon the attitudes of the culture as a whole toward the process an

Category: Literature - H