An incurably passionate man when it came to women, or just oversexed? What was your conclusion in watching the recent feature about famous author H.G. Wells, War With The World, on ABC Television?
Sex aside (and there were more such liaisons in his life than those covered in the feature), he also poured great passion into his work, in his views as a futurist, with his predictions of so many things that came true underscored in his prolific writing.
Last August, when this website was embracing its new format, I wrote about Media Ways, and mentioned Wells the visionary through his science fiction – The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Shape of Things to Come . . . and The War of the Worlds – that had such an impact on his readers.
So what’s all this to do with Tasmania?
In previously spotlighting him, I referred to the book, H.G.The History of Mr Wells, by former British Labour leader Michael Foot. And therein lies the Tassie connection; it was about The War of the Worlds (written in 1898 when Wells was 32).
Foot wrote: “The idea of the book had come – as H.G. later explained – in a conversation with his brother Frank, when they had talked of ‘the discovery of Tasmania by the Europeans – a very frightful disaster for the native Tasmanians!’ Not so different from the ‘war of extermination’ which threatened to destroy London.”
Wells visited Australia, but it wasn’t until 1939, for the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Canberra. He gave a lecture there and his views have a resonance today:
“What spendthrift ancestors we have had! What wastrels we still are! And all because history teaches us no better. Man burns and cuts down forests, he destroys soil, he acclimatises destructive animals. A map of the world showing the devastated regions, where devastation is due to mankind, would amaze most people. It ought to be put in every child’s atlas.”
We can only surmise what sort of frightening picture such an atlas would show today.
ImagHEREe:
