Aldous Huxley's prophetic novel of ideas warned of a terrible future then 600 years away. Though Brave New World was published less than a century ago in 1932, many elements of the novel's dystopic future now seem an eerily familiar part of life in the 21st century. These essays analyze the influence of Brave New World as a literary and philosophical document and describe how Huxley forecast the problems of late capitalism. Topics include the anti-utopian ideals represented by the rigid caste system depicted, the novel's influence on the philosophy of "culture industry" philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, the Nietzschean birth of tragedy in the novel's penultimate scene, and the relationship of the novel to other dystopian works.

As an intellectual giant of the 19th century, Thomas Henry Huxley was a pioneering genius whose influence was felt throughout the worlds of science, education, and politics of Victorian England. A man of astonishing energy and prodigious talent, Huxley had a sharp wit and a brilliant, inquiring mind. What he may have lacked in patience for tedious detail, he more than made up for in insight and intellect. Lovers of intellectual history may recall that Huxley invented the term "agnostic" to describe his own views. Generations of freethinkers are in his debt, given his codification of the agnostic concept into our language and unchained us from the limited concept of belief vs. disbelief-in and out of narrow religious contexts.This combination autobiography and essay collection, originally published in 1919, includes: . On the Method of Zadig . A Lobster; or the Study of Biology . On a Piece of Chalk . From the Hut to the Pantheon . On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge . A Liberal Education and Where to Find It . Science and Culture . On Science and Art in Relation to Education, as well as a chronology of Huxley's life and work.THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY (1825-1895), physiologist, anatomist, anthropologist, agnostic, and educator, is also the author of Evidence on Man's Place in Nature (1863).

While shipwrecked on the island of Pala, Will Farnaby, a disenchanted journalist, discovers a utopian society that has flourished for the past 120 years. Although he at first disregards the possibility of an ideal society, as Farnaby spends time with the people of Pala his ideas about humanity change. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Those Barren Leaves is a satirical novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1925. The title is derived from the poem 'The Tables Turned' by William Wordsworth which ends with the words: Enough of Science and of Art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives. Stripping the pretensions of those who claim a spot among the cultural elite, it is the story of Mrs. Aldwinkle and her entourage, who are gathered in an Italian palace to relive the glories of the Renaissance. For all their supposed sophistication, they are nothing but sad and superficial individuals in the final analysis.

Aldous Huxley- a major figure of the literary and intellectual history of this century- dramatizes here one man's disillusionment threatening to plunge the world into a new morass.