The End of the Dream

In The End of the Dream, venerated science-fiction author Philip Wylie trains his sights on the ultimate catastrophe—the destruction of the world through human beings’ unheeding and willful poisoning of the atmosphere, the land, the seas and rivers, and finally of the human race itself. The End of the Dream describes a horrific future when toxic chemicals, mutated creatures, and noxious gases all contribute to the eventual death of the human race and of the earth itself through a choking, painful, and pitiless exposure to foul air, disease, and the eruptions of outraged nature.

Shortly before his death in 1971, Wylie wrote this warning on the dangers of pollution in the hope that constructive action against environmental disasters might yet be possible. Although many positive changes have taken place in the intervening forty years, Wylie’s haunting tale still points out many unaddressed abuses—abuses that still have the potential to cause enormous damage to the ecosystem and humanity. The End of the Dream is still relevant today—its dire tableau highlights now as earlier the problems and choices we continue to face.