Successful practical politics needs not only a gospel behind it but also a Jerusalem in front of it.

From Diary by Paul Barker, London Review of Books, 19 May 1988.

Without Looking Backward, H.G. Wells would not have written The Sleeper Awakes (where Bellamy's utopia becomes a technological nightmare, and the Sleeper himself seizes dictatorial power). Nor would Fitz Lang have filmed his Metropolis. Such dystopians as Zamyatin's We, or Huxley's Brave New World, or Orwell's 1984, are all variations on Bellamy's theme. But at least they showed that people were looking into the future. Successful practical politics (Neil Kinnock might reflect) needs not only a gospel behind it - Marx, Ruskin, and Carlyle for the early Labour Party - but also a Jerusalem in front of it. This is what Bellamy provided.