Books like Mankind in the making by H. G. Wells

Aldous Huxley's 1932 masterpiece presents a dystopian future shaped by genetic engineering, conditioned society, and an oppressive, consumerist regime, raising urgent questions about ethics, control, and the loss of individuality.

H. G. Wells’ classic tales the narrator builds a machine, journeys 800,000 years ahead to a seemingly utopian future that hides a savage underground society.

A seminal 16th‑century Italian treatise, The Prince offers practical guidance for rulers, arguing that ends can justify morally dubious means to secure power and glory.

Upton Sinclair’s *The Jungle* exposes the harsh realities of Chicago's stockyards, highlighting the exploitation of immigrants and workers in the early 20th century and sparking reforms such as the Pure Food and Meat Inspection Act.

A future dystopian novel set in a highly regulated One State society that emphasizes logical reasoning and mass surveillance.

Penny‑tight businessman Bedford teams with absent‑minded scientist Cavor, who has cracked a gravity‑blocking material, to launch a daring voyage to the Moon—only to encounter a hostile, alien world beyond their expectations.

A historical masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago' is a gripping exploration of the Soviet Union's prison system, based on the firsthand testimonies of survivors and Solzhenitsyn's own experiences.

In *Du contrat social*, Rousseau argues that sovereign power belongs solely to the people and rejects the divine right of monarchs, laying the groundwork for modern political thought.

H. G. Wells’s speculative novel envisions a future World State, a benevolent dictatorship that prioritizes science, mandates English worldwide, and strives for a utopian society, while foreseeing a Second World War.

A graphic rendition of George Orwell's 1984, representing the novel’s first visual adaptation.

The Night Land is a 1912 horror‑fantasy classic in which a man from the 17th century foresees a dying Earth, its last survivors trapped in the Last Redoubt, and ventures into eternal night to find a reincarnated love.

I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title. Many a mild lady visitor opened her eyes when I remarked casually, I have been doing 'What is Wrong' all this morning. And one minister of religion moved quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in a minute.

A man is woken up 113 years later to a completely new social structure.

This concise and comprehensive volume provides an accessible overview of the main debates on the sociology and philosophy of the social sciences from the contemporary perspective of radical reflexivity and democratization. From its origins in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when a new system of knowledge was created around the idea of modernity, the author tracts the transformation of modern conceptions of social science as a cognitive system and as an institution. Focusing on the rise of positivism in the age of the Enlightenment to its final collapse in the twentieth century, Delanty argues how social science is today recovering its role as the critical voice of modernity and examines the positivist dispute from post-empiricist perspectives. It is argued that the conception of social science emerging today is one that involves a synthesis of radical constructivism and critical realism. The crucial challenge facing social science is a question of its public role: growing reflexivity in society has implications for the social production of knowledge and is bringing into question the separation of expert systems from other forms of knowledge. This is one of the most ambitious and wide-ranging texts in recent years on debates about the contemporary situation of social science. It will be of strong interest to undergraduates and postgraduates in the social sciences as well as to professional researchers working in the areas of the philosophy of social science, the sociology of science and knowledge, and social and political theory.