World War II but BEFORE World War II

[Laughablefellow]

Hey folks, was just wondering if you could offer some suggestions.

I'm looking for books which predict a major conflict such as world war II but predate the 1939-45 conflict. Ideally these texts should be written in the interwar period.

So far I've managed to come up with:-

H.G. Wells: "The Shape of Things to Come"

Olaf Stapledon: "Last and First Men"


Any other suggestions?

[Virgil]

Intersting question. I can't think of any. Most inter war literature focuses on the ramifications of the first world war. Literature, like all art, really looks rearward, not forward. Anyone that tells you that artists have some special capability to look at the future are just romanticizing art.

[JBI]

Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace - strangely enough - coming in 1919 - way before anyone saw anything coming.

[lupe]

There are indeed some novels that come very close to predict World World II. The two most recent ones I read are:

1. Insatiability by Stanislav Witkiewicz: A stunning and apocalyptic description of Poland's (and, by expansion, Europe's) decadence between the two wars, from an author who committed suicide the day that his worst nightmare came true (Russian's invasion in Poland).

2. The Sleepwalkers by Hermann Broch, especially the third book, with an account on Central Europe’s social and political changes that brought it face to face with totalitarian regimes and confrontation.

[WICKES]

Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies

[Laughablefellow]

Thanks for these suggestions folks, I'll certainly look into them.

[Lokasenna]

It's quite subtle, but Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm, which was published in 1932, was set sometime after 1946 and an apparently devestating Anglo-Nicaraguan War.