Brave New World Revisited

In 1932, Brave New World, a novel by the English author Aldous Huxley, was published. Contemporary events inspired this influential fantasy novel, which depicted a future society governed by totalitarianism. In 1958, a full twenty-seven years later, Huxley wrote Brave New World Revisited, a short nonfiction book which reexamines the novel’s ideas and predictions in light of events that had happened since the publication of Brave New World. Huxley argues that the world is accelerating toward the dystopia he foretold in Brave New World much faster than he had anticipated. The book diagnoses many problems at the foreground of speculation in mid-20th-century society, most of which endure today in ever more pressing forms.

The twelve chapters of Brave New World Revisited (which originated as articles Huxley wrote for Newsday) are each devoted to a different social problem or theme. Huxley starts with overpopulation, which he sees as humanity’s “central problem.” According to Huxley, the world population has been growing at an alarming rate to the point where births far outnumber deaths; this phenomenon puts an enormous strain on resources which will worsen as time goes on. Huxley also emphasizes the dangers of “over-organization,” or, the centralized control of society by an oligarchy consisting of “Big Business” and “Big Government.