The day after to-morrow

This wide-ranging projection into the future from the vantage point of 1928 looks at expected changes in the areas of culture, medicine, politics, technology and international affairs. It is more entertaining for what it gets wrong, but hits a few of the many targets. "The ranks of the new armies will be filled by women as well as men. There will be squadrons of women pilots, and armoured cars will be driven into the fighting line by those whom we now call 'flappers.'"

Gibbs gives a detailed nod to the possibility of atomic energy supplanting fossil fuels, and the potential for weapons, surprising for that year. He expects color television and quotes a scientist as saying in 25 years (1953) color television would be standard in all households. He missed by a few years but the times finally caught up. He then predicts the decline of reading and writing as a result.

Some of the projections are downright scary, such as the suggestion that criminal conduct might in the future be "cured" by a minor operation or a pill. Gibbs expects wars to be fought over food and energy supplies.

The author devotes a long section to the future of thought, in which he postulates that long-distance communication might in the future be done by telepathy. He seems intrigued by the potential of all forms of ESP.

Gibbs is accurately pessimistic about conflict in Europe, and goes into great detail as to the nature of the conflicting parties. Writing in 1928 he includes this chilling projection: "The nations of Europe, like the individuals within them, are beginning to search for a prophet who will lead them out of the dark jungle of international fears and hatreds to the pleasant pasture-lands of hope and peace." He then names his candidates, Churchill, Mussolini, Lenin and... Aristide Briand.

There is a casual racism that assumes that the reader shares it, and likely most original readers did. "Is there going to be a struggle for existence between the white and coloured races before Science and all the new powers it is giving us can secure the well-being of humanity?"