LOOKING BACKWARD From 2000 to 1887 and over 400,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
More Buying Choices
50 used & new from £0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift)
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book
Start reading LOOKING BACKWARD From 2000 to 1887 on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) [Paperback]

Edward Bellamy (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £2.99
Price: £2.13 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £0.86 (29%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.
Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, September 7? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
22 new from £0.01 26 used from £0.01 2 collectible from £3.75

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £0.74   -- --
Hardcover £14.99   £14.99 £79.95
Paperback £2.13   £0.01 £0.01
Unknown Binding --   -- £0.03
Audio Download, Unabridged £6.67 or £3.99 with new Audible.co.uk membership
Great Offers in Books
Save up to 50% on selected titles in New Releases, 1000s of Paperbacks and Favourites.

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) + Herland (Dover Thrift Editions) + News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (Oxford World's Classics)
Price For All Three: £9.25

Show availability and delivery details

Buy the selected items together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Herland (Dover Thrift Editions)

Herland (Dover Thrift Editions)

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
3.6 out of 5 stars (7)  £2.22
News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (Oxford World's Classics)

News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (Oxford World's Classics)

by William Morris
4.4 out of 5 stars (5)  £4.90
A Modern Utopia (Penguin Classics)

A Modern Utopia (Penguin Classics)

by H G Wells
£5.69
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Read a Great Movie)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Read a Great Movie)

by James Lee Burke
5.0 out of 5 stars (10)  £5.00
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics)

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Stories (Wordsworth Classics)

by Stephen Crane
£1.99
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.; New edition edition (26 Aug 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0486290387
  • ISBN-13: 978-0486290386
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.2 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 60,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #23 in  Books > Fantasy > Classics
    #3 in  Books > Reference > Atlases & Maps > Countries A-Z > United Kingdom > Cities & Towns > Dover
    #61 in  Books > Science Fiction > Classics

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Edward Bellamy
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Edward Bellamy Page

Product Description

Book Description

It is the year 2000 and full employment, material abundance and social harmony can be found everywhere.

This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West's initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy's wonderful prophetic inventions electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel. But however rich in fantasy and romance, Looking Backward is a passionate attach on the social ills of 19th-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal.

In her introduction, Cecelia Tichi discusses how the novel echoes the anguish and hopes of its own age while it embodies a sustaining myth of the American literary tradition: that man's perfectibility is attainable in the New World. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(3)
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
Agree with these tags?
See all 11 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift)
84% buy the item featured on this page:
Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) by Edward Bellamy Paperback 4.4 out of 5 stars (5)
£2.13
Looking Backward 2000-1887 (Oxford World's Classics)
6% buy
Looking Backward 2000-1887 (Oxford World's Classics) by Edward Bellamy Paperback
£5.19
A Modern Utopia (Penguin Classics)
3% buy
A Modern Utopia (Penguin Classics) by H G Wells Paperback
£5.69
News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (Oxford World's Classics)
3% buy
News from Nowhere: Or, an Epoch of Rest. Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance (Oxford World's Classics) by William Morris Paperback 4.4 out of 5 stars (5)
£4.90
› Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "Looking Backward": still the great American utopian novel, 28 Oct 2003
By Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward 2000-1887" remains the most successful and influential utopian novel written by an American writer mainly because the competition consists mostly of dystopian works, from Jack London's "The Iron Heel" to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," or science fiction works like Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed." Still, I do not mean to give the impression that Bellamy's 1888 novel gets this honor by default. Magazine covers in 1984 were devoted to judging the track record of George Orwell's dystopian classic and I would argue that Bellamy deserves the same sort of consideration now that we have reached the 21st century. I certainly intend to use him to that end in my upcoming Utopian Images class.

At the end of the 19th century Bellamy creates a picture of a wonderful future society. Bellamy's protagonist is Julian West, a young aristocratic Bostonian who falls into a deep sleep while under a hypnotic trance in 1887 and ends up waking up in the year 2000 (hence the novel's sub-title). Finding himself a century in the future in the home of Doctor Leete, West is introduced to an amazing society, which is consistently contrasted with the time from which he has come. As much as this is a prediction of a future utopia, it is also a scathing attack on the ills of American life heading into the previous turn of the century. Bellamy’s sympathies are clearly with the progressives of that period.

"Looking Backward" does not have a narrative structure per se. Instead West is shown the wonders of Boston in the year 2000, with his hosts explaining the rationale behind the grand civic improvements. For example, he discovers that every body is happy and no one is either rich or poor, all because equality has been achieved. Industry has been nationalized, which has increased efficiency because it has eliminated wasteful competition. This is a world with no need of money, but every citizen has a sort of credit card that allows them to make individual purchases, although everyone has the same montly allowance. In Bellamy's world is so ideal that it does not have any police, a military, any lawyers, or, best of all, any salesmen. Education is so valued that it continues until students reach the age of 21, at which point all citizens enter the work force, where they will stay until the age of 45. Men and women are compensated equally, but there are some distinctions between job on the basis of gender, and pregnancy and motherhood are taken into account.

Bellamy was living during the start of the Industrial Revolution, and like Francis Bacon and Tomasso Campanella who wrote during the height of the Age of Reason, he sees science and human ingenuity as being what will solve all of humanity's problems. He does not get into too many details regarding the comforts of modern living in the future, but there are several telling predictions (e.g., something very much like radio). However, it is clear that Bellamy is writing primarily to talk about economics and sociology, especially because he always compares his idealized future with the problems of his own time.

Obviously Bellamy's critique of the late 19th century will be of less interest to today's students that his various predictions on the both the future and an ideal world, unless they are specifically studying the American industrial revolution. But the latter two are enough to make "Looking Backward" deserve to be included in a current curriculum and I am looking foward to how well my students think Bellamy predicted the world in which we now find ourselves living.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A literary and social curiosity, 14 Dec 2008
By Michael J. Brett "Michael Brett" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
This books is worth reading due to its historic significance. It is however quite badly written, as it is really a grand tour of the future world of the year 2000, and plot and character development are just means to an end,really. In the year 2000, women still leave men at the end of meals to discuss the real business of life over brandy and cigars.

Interestingly, costume in the year 2000 is not discussed, which would have been interesting.

Contemporary Socialists and Marxists held this book up to ridicule, one reason being that Bellamy appeared to think that many problems of life would be resolved by people being able to have live music piped into their homes via telephone, as well as an unlimited number of consumer goods delivered through pipes! The dismissive phrase used by William Morris was that it was a 'Cockney paradise,' meaning a brainless consumer binge, rather like the lyrics of the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

One other aspect of it held up to ridicule -by Victorian contemporaries- was the idea that people doing rotten dirty jobs would work shorter hours than people in-say-libraries. One contemporary satire of this book had 5,000 people working as gravediggers at a funeral, so that each person only had to work for five minutes or so.

Interestingly, the author uses the phrase 'credit card' for possibly the first time in human history, as his utopia's subsitute for money.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
4.0 out of 5 stars Time Travel Utopia, 8 April 2009
By Lark - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
The Dover edition of Bellamy's classic is one of the most affordable ways to access this enduring time travel utopia. In its day this novel, and its sequel Equality, where so popular that they actually gave rise to a political movement of Nationalist or Bellamy Clubs. More recently it has been the inspiration to Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel's Participatory Economics project.

The story is one of an insomnaic plantation owner who employs mesmerism and an underground chamber to place himself in a state of suspended animation, unfortunately, like Ash Williams at the end of The Army of Darkness, he sleeps too long and awakens in the distant future.

The story then follows the central character being taken in by a future family, the shock and awe of his totally changed environment where no convention appears untouched, his personal crisis at not just the unfamiliar and undreamed of seachange in values and the economy but also the knowledge that everyone he once knew is now dead. With the passage of time our hero finds love with one of the future family's women and adapts to his new life.

While it is obvious that Bellamy has written a "novel of ideas", and consequently the writting can be a little wooden, but it is none the less a readable book in the same fashion of Well's time traveller fiction such as The Time Machine or When The Sleeper Awakes.

So far as the important of the political ideas goes, I think its very much mistaken to consider it a book infused with marxism, socialism or a radical agenda, instead it's simply futurology with some predictions about social trends which where not that far off the mark, at least with covered malls, credit cards, labour exchanges and radio broadcasting into peoples homes.

Bellamy does depict a society where in mego corporations have merged and merged to the point of a single entity, this trend is accompanied by consensus about full employment but all in all its much more like the Japanese corporation of the seventies or early eighties than the USSR. The second novel, which hasnt been republished in any recent or thrift edition, Equality, is much more so a disection of the politics and business practices of Bellamys future order of superior technics and central planning.

In fact, William Morris is said to have been so perturbed at what he considered a technocratic nightmare that he wrote News from Nowhere, a depiction of a slow, restful, countryside idyle as socialist utopia.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887 by Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy is famous for his utopian novel set in the year 2000, Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887, published in 1888. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2006 by Rex Curry

5.0 out of 5 stars A warmly human and enlightening read
Having never really heard of this novel or its author before, I was rather surprised to discover how immensely popular it was at the end of the nineteenth century. Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2003 by Daniel Jolley

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject


















i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.