Written in 1887 by Edward Bellamy, this Utopian novel tells the story of a Boston aristocrat who falls asleep under a hypnotist's spell in 1887 and awakens in Boston in the year 2000.
The book, which was voted the most influential novel of the prior 50 years by no less than three published surveys in 1935, describes a perfect world in which the government runs every facet of the economy.
In the author's imagined America of the year 2000, everyone works for the government from age 21 until age 45, after which each citizen looks forward to a blissful retirment of material satisfaction and personal growth. There is no crime, no poverty and no war.
If you have ever wondered how it is that America went from being a country built on the idea of individual liberty to one where it is assumed that the government's job is to provide for everyone's needs, you really need to read this book.
"Looking Backward" is the book that laid out the grand progressive vision that dominated so much of America's political and intellectual evolution during the Progressive Era (1870-1920).
A must-read if you really want to understand the core of today's Progressive (I do not use the word "Liberal" to describe moderne leftists) mind set.