Looking Backward · Chapter
Author's Preface explained
The preface, dated December 26, 2000, introduces the book as a historical narrative designed to help readers understand the social contrasts between the 19th and 20th centuries.
What happens
The preface, dated December 26, 2000, introduces the book as a historical narrative designed to help readers understand the social contrasts between the 19th and 20th centuries. The author explains that the present social order, though now seen as simple and logical, is less than a century old, and that the 19th century believed its industrial system would last indefinitely. The book is cast as a romantic narrative to make the instructive content more engaging, and the author hopes readers will appreciate the progress of the last hundred years as a foundation for future advancement.
Themes in this chapter
Moral and Social Progress
The preface emphasizes the prodigious moral and material transformation from the 19th to the 20th century, and the hope for continued progress.
Critique of Capitalism and Consumerism
References the 'ancient industrial system' and its 'shocking social consequences' as a contrast to the modern social order.
Social Inequality and Class Division
Implies the social contrasts between centuries, highlighting the inequality of the 19th-century system.
Characters to notice
- Julian West
Mentioned as the narrator who will speak for himself in the main text.
- Dr. Leete
Referenced as the character who provides explanations of modern social institutions to his guest.
Key passages
“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.”
In the year 2000, people take their logical and simple social system for granted, forgetting that it has existed for less than a hundred years.
Sets up the central contrast between the 19th and 20th centuries.
“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.”
Until the late 1800s, almost everyone believed the old industrial system, with its terrible social effects, would continue forever with only minor fixes.
Highlights the 19th-century assumption of permanence for capitalism.
“The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject.”
This book aims to help readers understand the differences between the 19th and 20th centuries without being overwhelmed by dry historical texts.
Explains the purpose of the narrative.