H. G. Wells has been called a visionary and a prophet. He was indeed the most celebrated and influential writer of the early 20th century,
As a novelist his epic work The Time Machine (1895) established his reputation as an inventor of science fiction. The Shape of Things to Come (1933)predicted World War II which he said would begin when Germany invaded Poland. It also described what would later become the London Blitz. The book, which was also made into a movie, ended with the description of a world government. His book The War of the Worlds (1898) became a 1930s radio production that caused hysteria and panic throughout the United States. It was revived in a movie in the 21st Century (2005)..
In various writings, Wells predicted both world wars, the use of the tank in World War I, and in a book titled The World Set Free (1914),he predicted the atomic bomb.
After World War I he thought the League of Nations was too frail, so he became a public missionary for an effective world government.
It took him only a year to write his monumental Outline of History (1919). One year after publication it had sold two million copies, becoming the second best selling book of the 20th Century. In addition, during World War II, he wrote The rights of Man or What We are Fighting For, a book .that heavily influenced the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, which is attached to the United Nations Charter.