The Food of the Gods

Abstract

The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth—to give it its original title—was written at a time when Wells was becoming increasingly interested in social questions. He became a member of the Fabian Society in February 1903 and marked his debut by reading to the Society a paper entitled ‘The Question of Scientific Administrative Areas in Relation to Municipal Undertakings’¹⁸ in which he developed at length his view that local government areas were far too small for modern conditions. The Food of the Gods, which is a satire on the limitations of local and national boundaries, is essentially an allegorical fantasia on the central theme of his Fabian lecture: that the immense change of scale in human affairs rendered contemporary political arrangements impracticable.