Novel Threat

Does Orwell's 1984 Foreshadow a New Danger?

One of the greatest of old books, in my view, is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. This 1949 novel presents, in lean yet compelling English prose, a gripping tale of the world's possible totalitarian future. Yet it is much more than a gripping tale; for woven into the story of Winston Smith, a man struggling to hold onto his humanity in a technologically policed one-party state, is an analysis of the nature of political regimes, of the connection between language and thought, and of the relation between information and liberty that would do any philosopher or political scientist proud.

In the space of a single column, it would be impossible to present a comprehensive account of the...