Science (not so) Fiction: H.G. Wells’ Contributions to Social Degeneration and Eugenics in the Context of the Holocaust

Author: Connor Glozek

Field of Study: Social Sciences

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Will Glovinsky

Easel: 59

Timeslot: Afternoon

Abstract: “The minds of all of us… would be perceptibly different if Wells had never existed” (Orwell). Celebrated today for his technological prognostications and contributions to science fiction, H.G. Wells’s influence on twentieth-century thought and politics has a darker side. Much of his work deals with the theory of social degeneration, a belief that the foundations of society were eroding and that whole swaths of people are now spreading their ‘inferior’ genetics. Thus, this research paper focuses on Wells and his popularization of social degeneration theory and eugenics in The Time Machine (1895) and Anticipations (1901). This investigation is crucial because, even today, many continue to believe that the ‘Jewish backstab’ theory or the ‘scapegoat theory’ served as primary factors in the Holocaust instead. Moreover, this paper considers links between Wells, eugenics, and Nazi ideology, highlighting how some of the ideological roots of the Holocaust unnervingly intertwine with 19th and early 20th-century Anglophone popular culture.