A vivid portrait of the man behind the writings.
One of the most popular and controversial writers of the twentieth
century, George Orwell's work is as relevant today as it was in his own
lifetime. Possibly, in the age of Brexit, Trump, and populism, even more
so. Doublethink features in Nineteen Eighty-Four and is the forerunner
to Fake News. Orwell foresaw the creation of the EU and more
significantly he predicted that post-Imperial xenophobia would cause
Britain to leave it. His struggle with his own antisemitism could serve
as a lesson to today's Labour Party and while the Soviet Union is gone,
China has taken its place as a totalitarian superpower.
Aside from his importance as a political theorist and novelist, Orwell's
life is fascinating in its own right. Caught between uncertainty and his
family's upper middle-class complacency, Orwell grew to despise the
class system that spawned him despite finding himself unable to fully
detach himself from it. His life thereafter mirrored the history of his
country; like many from his background he devoted himself to socialism
as a salve to his conscience. In truth he reserved as much suspicion and
distaste for the proles as he did pity. He died at the point when
Britain's status as an Imperial and world power had waned but his work
remains both prescient and significant.
Orwell: A Man of Our Time offers a vivid portrait of the man behind
the writings, and places him and his work at the center of the current
political landscape.
