Introduction

‘Our true nationality is mankind’ remains probably one of the most memorable injunctions made by H. G. Wells. ¹ Appearing at the close of The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920), this phrase expresses an unfulfilled wish for a post-WWI peace, on the one hand, and a call for a post-national, post-Westphalian beginning, on the other. Indeed, after the Treaty of Versailles carved up Europe into national jurisdictions, Wells’s hopes could not have been dashed further. Following the culmination of nationalisms across the continent, he reasserted his proposal for a World State, whose initial stirrings can be found as early as The War of the Worlds (1898). Repeatedly, Wells petitioned for a world organized on scientific principles, where education and open discussion would have eradicated extant armies, navies, and social hierarchies; where technology would have transformed the experience of space, time, work, and travel; and where the rule of democracy would have rendered dishonest statesmen out of service. ² Together, these developments would have engendered a new faith in global well-being. For Wells, the World State was to become a place where humanity would have come into its own, a prefiguration of utopia.