The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One.

Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. --Daniel Hintzsche

Product Description
Published in 1949, Ninety Eighty-Four is Orwell's terrifing vision of a totalitarian future. Its hero, Winston Smith, is a worker at the Ministry of Truth, where he falsifies records for the party. Secretly subversive, he and his colleague Julia try to free themselves from political slavery but the price of freedom is betrayal. 6 cassettes.

Many of the principles that Orwell writes about (e.g., thought control) are done in a quite blatant way in the book. In the real world of the 20th/21st century they're done, only much more subtly. That way, we don't know they being perpetrated on us.

Here's how 1984 applies to current events:

WAR IS PEACE

The new "War on Terrorism" is being sold as a guarantor or our safety. While this war is being waged, we're to accept permanent war as a fact of life. As the unavoidable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we are told to go back to "living our lives."

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

"Freedom itself was attacked," Bush said. He's right, though here's the twist: Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished freedoms in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government wants to tap our phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. Further, it wants authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. To save freedom, we have to destroy it.

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

America's "new war" against terrorism will be fought with unprecedented secrecy, including press restrictions not seen for years, the Pentagon has advised.

When you read this book, you'll be better able to see the signs around you. The world portrayed by Orwell may well come to pass by the end of this century.


Big Brother is watching you - read this book and see how!   May 25, 2000
 117 out of 137 found this review helpful

George Orwell's classic was incredibly visionary. It is hardly fathomable that this book was written in 1948. Things that we take for granted today - cameras everywhere we go, phones being tapped, bodies being scanned for weapons remotely - all of these things were described in graphic detail in Orwell's book.

Now that we have the Internet and people spying on other people w/ webcams and people purposely setting up their own webcams to let others "anonymously" watch them, you can see how this culture can develop into the Orwellian future described in "1984."

If you've heard such phrases as "Big Brother," "Newspeak," and "thought crime" and wondered where these phrases came from, they came from this incredible, vivid and disturbing book.

Winston Smith, the main character of the book is a vibrant, thinking man hiding within the plain mindless behavior he has to go through each day to not be considered a thought criminal. Everything is politically correct, children defy their parents (and are encouraged by the government to do so) and everyone pays constant allegiance to "Big Brother" - the government that watches everyone and knows what everyone is doing at all times - watching you shower, watching you having sex, watching you eat, watching you go to the bathroom and ultimately watching you die.

This is a must-read for everyone.


A religious warning that is still relevant today   January 12, 2000
 68 out of 148 found this review helpful

To me this novel is unmistakingly about religious doctrine, not just totalitarian governments and the terrors associated with revolution. The way people are told to believe in the Party (Christianity) even though they have the intelligence to reason that it is totally illogical. I can see no difference between someone who has faith and someone who is prepared to use doublethink to mentally condition themselves. Both require the user to operate at two levels - to apply scientific fact for instance to construct televisions and rocket engines, and then to be able to switch into illogical rambling and decide that they believe an obscure doctrine that has no basis in fact.

That is why Orwells ideas cannot be dismissed as "far-fetched" and irrelevant. If the faithful ever gain the whip hand of society we may well see ourselves being repressed into acceptance of ignorance and the worship of Big Brother (God). What is it they tell us as children? That God is omnipotent and can see everything? Does that sound similar? The telescreens and microphones are simply an extensions of God`s apparent omnipotence and the Thought Police the modern dy equivalent of the Spanish Inquistion.

I found it very ironic that one reader claims that his desert island books would be 1984 and the Bible. The former is a book that warns against society discarding intelligent thought and reason, the latter is a book that through the ages has caused that to occur.

Everyone should read this book if they can. There are many levels of comparison other than that of religion of course, but it is here that I see the most relevance to contempoary society.


I propose some rules for reviewing 1984...   January 24, 2004
 47 out of 86 found this review helpful

1) Read Erich Fromm's afterward.

2) Don't imply that 1984 was somehow meant to be a prediction for the state of the real world in 1984. Even if that were the case, the fact that he wasn't 100% right does not need to be reiterated for the 8 billionth time.

3) Don't reduce this complex and subtle masterpiece to a mere allegory for Stalinist totalitarianism.

4) If you don't know that Orwell was a liberal with strong socialist leanings, read some of his other books and possibly a biography before thinking that all 1984 is about is damning communism or socialism.

5) If your review is shorter than three sentences, you're probably not saying anything new, so don't even bother.

6) If you just finished reading 1984 for your high school English class, please do not write a review. Wait until you've gone through college, and read it again. (related to Rule 5)

7) Don't call Orwell "Eric Blair" - as if you and he were old school chums. As a writer, he is George Orwell.

Thank you. Following these rules, there would be about 50 reviews left and maybe a person would have time to read them all!