This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West's initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy's wonderful prophetic inventions--electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting--ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel. But however rich in fantasy and romance, Looking Backward is a passionate attack on the social ills of nineteenth-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal.

A wealthy Bostonian awakes from a hypnotic trance to find himself in a futuristic cooperative commonwealth.