THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

Macmillan, New York, 1945, reprint.  Hard cover, 431 pages.  Very good; blue cloth with white lettering on spine; vertical thread pull length of rear board, spine ends lightly worn; binding sound with a bit of age spotting on outer page block.  Dust jacket price-clipped, tears and repaired tears on verso, some creases and small losses; toning and faded damp stain at lower rear corner.  Gift inscription on front end paper; remainder of interior clean and unmarked.  ‘With this famous book one of the keenest minds of today turns his imagination to the changes which may take place during the next century and a half on our planet.  It is his “History of the Future,” amazing in its vivid detail, rich in wit and Mr. Well’s customary caustic humor, optimistic in its hope for the future – however far distant.  Purporting to have been written in the year 2106, it opens with the historian’s interpretation of events through which we ourselves have already lived. … It seems that Western capitalism is doomed, that the belated efforts of “Roosevelt II” were inadequate, that after the Fighting Forties and the Famished Fifties the peoples of the world fell into a state of weak aimlessness.  Only then and gradually does the idea for a World State begin to take root.’ (from flaps)