Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley

First of all...I love the cover art for this book and for Brave New World. Okay, now that that is out of the way, I had a lot of trouble getting through this book. It is not even half as long as Brave New World, but it took me nearly as long to read. There is no doubt that Huxley was a brilliant man. After all, he was 62 years old and blind in one eye when he penned this rumination on his most famous work. However, while I thoroughly enjoyed the writing of Brave New World, I found large portions of Brave New World Revisited to be rather tedious.

The twelve chapters of this book were originally published as a series of articles for Newsday during the height of the Cold War. They varied in topic from, over-population to brainwashing to subconscious persuasion. In the final chapter, by far the most interesting, Huxley discusses what can be done to combat the problems he outlined throughout the rest of the book. Most of the societal threats outlined in the book are described by Huxley as threats to freedom. For this and other reasons, it is painfully obvious that Huxley wrote this during the middle of the Cold War. A fear of communism pervades this work.

Despite these drawbacks, if you have read Brave New World, this may be worth your time. You may find it easier to get through than I did. I did find some parts of the book very interesting and thought-provoking.