For the 75th anniversary of Nineteen Eighty-Four, historian Laura Beers explores George Orwell's still-radical ideas and why they are critical today in her new book, Orwell's Ghosts. First published in 1949, Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the book we turn to when truth is mutilated, when language is distorted, when power is abused, when we want to know how bad things can get. It is still, in the words of Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, "an apocalyptical codex of our worst fears".

In this book, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell's full body of work—his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system—to examine what "Orwellian" truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell's writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of "fake news" and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism and the oppressive nature of the British Empire, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism.

Event Info

Dec 27, 2024, 10:30 AM to 12 PM

Dec 27, 2024, 7:30 to 10 PM

Dec 28, 2024, 6 to 9 PM