Book Title: Back to Methuselah
Subtitle: A Metabiological Pentateuch
Book Description: In this bold cycle of five plays, featuring an extensive introduction, George Bernard Shaw examines society’s ills and imagines a solution which takes his audience from the Garden of Eden to as far as thought can reach.
Contents
Book Information
Book Description
Can modern civilization honestly hope to have competent leaders, given that the complexities of society are too great for any one person to truly grasp? Even back in 1921, George Bernard Shaw thought such expectations were unrealistic. How then can contemporary societies hope to thrive?
For modern civilizations to prosper, Shaw argues that increased longevity is essential. In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, Shaw imagines a history in which extreme longevity can be reached through creative evolution, a process motivated by humanity’s creative impulse. Although Shaw rooted his theories in Lamarckian science, which has since fallen out of scientific favor, Shaw’s artistic achievements continue to demand our attention.
Back to Methuselah features an extensive introduction that details Shaw’s ideas and five plays which bring those ideas to life, imagining a new human history, stretching out one idea, one myth, from the Garden of Eden to as far as thought can reach. A metabiological pentateuch, indeed.
License
This work (Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw) is free of known copyright restrictions.
Metadata
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This work (Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw) is free of known copyright restrictions.
Public Domain in the United States of America. This work is free of known copyright restrictions. Text retrieved from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13084
Book design by Cameron N. Coulter.
Cover design by Danae Stahlnecker.
Cover art: Adam and Eve (1528) by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Editorial note: The reader is likely to notice the absence of apostrophes from contractions in the essay section of this work. The author disliked apostrophes and often omitted them. Some of his publishers inserted them, others honored his wishes. The policy of Project Gutenberg is to treat apostrophes as they were in the source text. In this case, apostrophes were omitted in the essay section but used in the play.
