First Year Book Program

First Year Book Info

The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities by Mike Tidwell
check out the companion website for this year's selection

Information for Faculty: do you want to use the First Year Book in your class?

First Year Book Archives

books and activities from previous years

2005 Thurgood Marshal: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

2004 The Stakes by Dr. Shibley Telhami

2003 Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean

2002 The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman

2001 Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton

2000 Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

1999 The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

1998 The Control of Nature by John McPhee & Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

1997 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

1996 Einstein's Dreams by Alan P. Lightman

1995 The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

1994 The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Willis

UGST home
office for undergraduate studies

ARCHIVES: The War of the Worlds (1997-98)

The War of the Worlds, considered the pioneer novel of modern science fiction, was written in response to several historical events. The most important was the unification and militarization of Germany, which led to a series of novels predicting war in Europe, beginning with George Chesney's The Battle of Dorking (1871). Most of these were written in a semi-documentary fashion and Wells borrowed their technique to tie his interplanetary war tale to specific places in England familiar to his readers. This attempt at hyper-realism helped to inspire Orson Welles when the latter created his famed 1938 radio broadcast based on the novel.

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent. He was a novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian, whose science fiction stories have been filmed many times. Other Wells's best known works are The Time Machine (1895), one of the first modern science fiction stories and The Invisible Man (1897). Wells wrote over a hundred of books, about fifty of them novels.

Mr. H.G. Wells

For more on Mr. H.G. Wells:

* On-Line Literature

* The H.G. Wells Society Webpage

[ Last updated on November 7, 2007 ]