Brave New World
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit
"A masterpiece. . . . One of the most prophetic dystopian works." —Wall Street Journal
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order—all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization.
Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as a thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
This was not a book I would recommend, other than knowing the story for background stories. An online synopsis would do the job for that.
To the ethicist or political theorist who wants to envision a society that boosts the general welfare, that begs the question: What mades hedonia distinct from eudaimonia? What is it about happiness, as commonly understood individualistically, collectively, or behaviorally to be the end of morality and objective of just society, that is not encapsulated in the pursuit of pleasurable sensation?
And how do moral arguments against the maximization of immediate gratification fare, pit against the possibility of extending that gratification across a lifetime? Is there some quality of the things often referred to as immediate gratification, which even if not limited to the immediate moment, is still inferior in a eudaimonic sense to traditional virtues?
Perhaps it'd have to be answered piecemeal, but as gratification becomes more and more available to us in the next few decades, these questions, posed by Huxley, are going to become more and more important to the way we live our lives, I think.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.