Nineteen Eighty-Four by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth in Oceania, a superstate ruled by the Party and its leader Big Brother, where he rewrites old newspapers to match the Party's current line. Citizens are watched through telescreens, the Thought Police punish disloyal thoughts, and the official language, Newspeak, is being shrunk so that dissent cannot be expressed.

Winston begins a diary, has an affair with Julia, and tries to join a resistance he believes exists. He is captured, and in the Ministry of Love is broken in Room 101 by his interrogator O'Brien, who explains that the aim of power is power itself.

Orwell wrote the novel as a warning against totalitarianism of the left and the right, after his experience in the Spanish Civil War and his observation of Soviet propaganda.

Why it matters

Its vocabulary, including doublethink, memory hole and Big Brother, is part of political speech. Conservatives often cite it for its picture of state control of language and history, and of how freedom of thought depends on keeping truth separate from power. Orwell was a democratic socialist, and every party claims him.

About the author

George Orwell (1903-1950) was the pen name of Eric Blair, a British writer who served in the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Marxist POUM militia in Spain, and wrote Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm. He wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four on the Scottish island of Jura while ill with tuberculosis and died a few months after it came out.

Who should read it

Everyone, and again after a long time.