War of the Worlds - Through History

War of the worlds

H.G. Welles published the very first version of War of the Worlds as a book in 1898 as a novel. Since the story was first published, each time our society has felt a since of paranoia, or have had a fear of annihilation the story re-emerges and is used as allegory for social and cultural events going on at that time. This is because of the universal themes that the novel confronts and can be seen as relevant throughout different points in history.

The first publication of the novel was seen to be allegory for British imperialism and the threat that there was on the empire. In 1898 the British Empire was at its most dominant with London being at the political centre of a large proportion of the world. The original was reflecting the fear Britain had of immigrants and cultural destruction. Also some people even felt that the world would end at the turn of the centaury so the novel reflected that paranoia. The people of 1898 felt threatened by immigrants and thought them to be a threat on the nations culture and ideologies. This fear led to fears of the collapse of the British Empire and the fear of immigration.

We saw this story re-emerge in 1938 amidst the build up to WWII and the rise of the Nazi party in Europe. The story was released at this time as a radio drama and it terrified millions as they were already extremely paranoid about the advance of fascism in Europe and were also aware of the inevitable world war that the constant threats that Hitler made would cause.  Alike to the first publication people had a fear of others but instead of immigrants people were in fear of the Nazis and Fascists and foreign nations in general, such as; Japan, Russia, Germany and Italy. The fear of annihilation was again prominent at tis time thanks to the invention of nuclear weaponry and the threats to the US national security these caused from Europe and Asia.

15 years later we seen the story again but this time (in 1953) the world was in the middle of the cold war. This was the first time this story was brought to our screens and it reflected the paranoia we had agains communist countries and the fear of annihilation through Nuclear bombs. At this time as well in the USA the fear that the British has in 1898 was re-visited as Americans felt fear of immigrants and actually referred to them as 'Aliens'. People at this time believed that yet another World War was imminent and there was a strong fear f the destruction of civilisation as they knew it at the time.