Book excerpt: 1890 Dystopian Science Fiction Thus far we have the testimony of Professor West as to the most apparent faults of what we now call the old order of society. He left behind him other writings than that from which I have just quoted, and these writings (among them, a diary of the events which he took part in) I shall have occasion to quote from later on. After his death at the battle of Lake Erie, his papers were taken possession of by the Chinese authorities, and upon my appointment to this professorship at Shawmut College, were delivered to me. Your previous studies will have told you what professor West mentions in his book, that the Nationalist idea of government prevailed at the opening of this century, in all of Europe, all of North America and in the greater part of South America, I do not think that he mentions that the Nationalistic notions also prevailed to an extent in India and Russian Asia; nor that the Nationalists of Great Britain had secured a quiet government only after...