Between the Wars: Essays and Letters

This gathering of Huxley's neglected essays and broadcasts from the 1930s dispels the image of him as an aloof highbrow and reveals the range of his social and political commitments. Around the time he wrote Brave New World , which expressed disdain for mass culture, the English novelist also published several reports on the plight of the unemployed, the homeless and the exploitation of British workers. An early, outspoken opponent of Hitler and of British fascists, Huxley briefly became an ardent proponent of Soviet-style central planning, embracing policies he seemed to revile in his dystopian novel. Skillfully edited by Oxford fellow Bradshaw, these 28 selections give us several disparate Huxleys--the supporter of eugenics and compulsory sterilization of mental defectives, the critic of unregulated technological progress, the shrewd analyst of the mass psychology of fascism, the disciple of H. L. Mencken. (July)