The Open Conspiracy

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The Open Conspiracy was Wells' Blue Print for A World Revolution; he regarded this book as his finished statement on the way the world ought to be ordered. Possibly he underestimated, or ignored, the fact that it is often in the interest of subsets of the human race to act against other subsets. Moreover the emphasis on religion seems odd, from a rationalist.

After the First World War, observing the lack of knowledge of most people about most things, he turned to history, starting, in 1918, his Outline of History first published in parts with 'gorgeous' covers, then in 1920 as a two-volume work including colour plates of a lavish nature for the time. In effect it was jointly authored — his chapters were sent to collaborators, and the resulting multiple corrections reassembled by the duly-chastened Wells. A 'popular' one-volume edition appeared in 1930. By the standards of its time this was a best-seller. It was praised decades later by A.J.P. Taylor as 'still the best introduction to history'. Toynbee had a favourable opinion of it. During the 1920s it sparked a controversy with Hilaire Belloc, who believed in such things as the 'Fall of Man'. It was also attacked by a teacher of Greek. Wells' hopes that school history could be taught in an international sense still, of course, have not come to fruition.

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