As expected from Huxley, this is a brilliant collection of essays on our society and its future. I consider it a great supplement to any anti-utopian novel, to be read when initial shock is soothed and there is more room for clear thought.The fact that it was published in 1959 and sounds, for the most part, like the work of a modern-day social philosopher, doesn't surprise me any more. What continues to impress me is the author's ability to stay away from imposing his own leanings on his prose.

If you enjoyed "Brave New World", only because it is a fiction, this book, which is psycho-analysis, if you will, of the Brave New World and our World in general, might not be for you. I personally enjoyed this one, because I didn't look at the Brave New World as strictly a fiction novel, but a warning sign, an example and explanation of scientifically induced soft tyrannical society. The world is painted in the bright lights and happiness, but at the same time lack of individual decision making...

I picked up Huxley’s classic dystopian utopia Brave New World as part of my ongoing pursuit of the classics. His analytical non-fiction follow-up (some thirty years after the novel) was included in the back of the paperback version I was reading, and it immediately piqued my interest, in some ways even more than the novel. Although I ultimately disagree with much of Huxley’s worldview, this collection of essays–which analyzes the possibility and probability of the events in the novel–is fascinat...

In this short book, Huxley talks about the fears of a future similar to the book "Brave New World", where there is no freedom and all human beings have no individuality.Topics such as overpopulation, propaganda and brainwashing are treated in detail, illustrating as a "dictator of the future" could use various elements of the book "Brave New World" to keep people under control.Beautiful food for thought about politics, social aspects and freedom. However, I found the book a bit tiring and repeti...

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1931) transported readers to a deeply creepy nightmare-vision of the future, in which man had disappeared as an independent being, instead becoming the raw materials for a new, engineered hive creature. In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley shares his fear that the technocratic domination of society is proceeding much more quickly than he had anticipated, and then outlines reasons for concern and the vectors by which free minds could be compromised and manipulated...

This book reminds me of the suggestion to not get to know one's heros. He isn't my hero, but his writings here are reminiscent of the kind of surprisingly reactionary viewpoints not expected of someone who seemed lucidly critical of dystopic possibilities. BNW seemed to imply a certain criticism of permissive dogma, had an opposition to eugenics, and analysis of insidious and subtle positive reinforcement in authoritarian societies. But in reading this, he focuses multiple times on scare-mongeri...

This book is a small political essay that is just as relevant today as it was at the time of its writing (1958), some twenty-five years after the publication of Huxley’s masterpiece. What the author is trying to do here is to assess the validity of his novel’s predictions, about the socio-political situation of the 1950s and forward. Interestingly, Huxley also compares his predictions with that of Orwell’s 1984.Huxley mainly focuses on two significant problems of our present time: overpopulation...

= New World RevisitedIn this essay, Huxley updates some of the themes explored in his dystopia Brave New World and considers some other possible developments and embranchements in the future.The contents :1) Over-Population / 2) Quantity, Quality, Morality / 3) Over-Organization / 4) Propaganda in a Democratic Society / 5) Propaganda Under a Dictatorship / 6) The Art of Selling / 7) Brainwashing / 8) Chemical Persuasion / 9) Subconscious Persuasion / 10) Hypnopaedia / 11) Education For Freedom /...

Authors such as George Orwell, Margaret Atwood and Aldous Huxley scare me. How can these authors who write dystopian fiction or social commentaries 30, 40, even 50 years ago be so accurate in what is going on in today's society? This book is no exception. Huxley is basically summarizing the first book in this collection: Brave New World of which was published over 15 years before this one. Some quotes that I've extracted from this book which ring true for today are: "If over-population should dr...

A timeless and prophetic work by one of the most brilliant literary and sociological thinkers of the 21st century, who presaged the brave new world of malleable reality and mutable memory that we currently live in.Where to begin? Over the course of a few hundred pages, this singular mind has summed up the socioeconomic underpinnings of the last century of history, while laying down a blueprint for the next century. With its timeless insights into the nature of human frailty, democracy, tyranny,

In 1931, Aldous Huxley wrote his magnum opus 'Brave New World' - a prescient masterpiece dealing with what the author termed as 'a fable dealing with de-humanization employing techniques of over organisation'. This prophetic anti-utopian novel ranks alongside George Orwell's '1984' as one of the most influential books penned on the swift and forced erosion of independent thought and freedom of choice. Using a combination of centralised control of reproduction and neo natal programming, a dictato...

I am pleasantly surprised. This book was a series of essays about certain social institutions that are slowly making the world more closely align with the future Huxley predicts in Brave New World. I am not sure why Huxley is trying so hard to prove that his predictions are more likely to come true than George Orwell's 1984. Here are some of the main ideas that I thoroughly enjoyed:"That so many of the well fed young television-watchers in the world's most powerful democracy should be so complet...

It is remarkable how an author’s analysis of his own work can be so divergent from the reader’s. In Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley diagnoses society’s illnesses (overpopulation and over-organization), explains their freedom-crippling effects (propaganda, brainwashing, mass-manipulation), and suggests some vague remedies (education! Birth control!).These are, for the most part, not the first things that come to mind after reading Brave New World and looking around at our culture today.

No doubt about it, Brave New World is an important book. When I first read it in high school it was a revelation and a lot more accessible than 1984, which seemed kind of dark, dreary, and difficult at the time. Twenty years later, I find myself rereading 1984 almost annually because it does what great literature can do so well: get under one's skin in a way that is uncomfortable yet illuminating. The world Orwell creates in 1984 is somehow more consistent and believable, the characters more "re...

Quis custodiet custodes? Mankind has always dreamed of the perfect society, just as it has always feared the oppressive one. From this dream has been born the fantasy of Utopia and from this fear the nightmare of Dystopia.But is Utopia truly the antithesis of Dystopia, and is it really an egalitarian society possible? From Thomas More to Karl Marx and H. G. Wells and many others, this perfect society generally abides by some rigid, unimaginative and sometimes implausible rules, the main one b

"Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them."

I liked this collection of essays about the issues raised in BNW and 1984 better than I liked the novel itself.

I fucking hate politics. It's only useful in a very small amount of cases and in the rest of the time it's just a big pile of bullshit that is fed to people in order to keep them at their lower level. I don't like governments and people that run countries and I really really don't like them in countries like mine or in countries like USA. Somewhere in this world there must be a good president or a nice prime-minister but in my country, that doesn't happen and in the USA it's all just a big scam....

If you can get past the first couple of chapters, where Huxley's remarks about Africans, Asiatics and the illiterate masses leaves me thinking he was a pretty big jerk, you'll proceed through some fascinating (and fairly spot on) commentary about totalitarianism and propaganda and democracy, to a final paragraph that bemoans kids these days and their lack of dedication to freedom. So, it's overall a useful and interesting read, while being the product of its time.

An interesting read to understand more of Huxley's worldview and political theory. Fun to see where he got it right and wrong with his predictions. One of those reads that exposes you to another person's beliefs and make you examine yourself and your own views to further develop and/or defend what you believe. Some very good pearls of wisdom in this piece. I don't agree with everything he writes in this but still intellectually stimulating to read.