THE WORLD SET FREE

In a novel written on the eve of World War I, H. G. Wells imagines a war &ldquoto end all wars&rdquo that begins in atomic apocalypse but ends in an enlightened utopia.

Writing in 1913, on the eve of World War I&rsquos mass slaughter and long before World War II&rsquos mushroom cloud finale, H. G. Wells imagined a war that begins in atomic apocalypse but ends in a utopia of enlightened world government. Set in the 1950s, Wells&rsquos neglected novel The World Set Free describes a conflict so horrific that it actually is the war that ends war.

Wells&mdashthe first to imagine a &ldquouranium-based bomb&rdquo&mdashoffers a prescient description of atomic warfare that renders cities unlivable for years: &ldquoWhole blocks of buildings were alight and burning fiercely, the trembling, ragged flames looking pale and ghastly and attenuated in comparison with the full-bodied crimson glare beyond.&rdquo Drawing on discoveries by physicists and chemists of the time, Wells foresees both a world powered by clean, plentiful atomic energy&mdashand the destructive force of the neutron chain reaction.

With a cast of characters including Marcus Karenin, the moral center of the narrative Firmin, a proto-Brexiteer and Egbert, the visionary