
Category: Classic, Misc. Non-fiction, Political
Language: EnglishKeywords: Orwell Essay Socialism Britain Classic
Written by George Orwell
Read by Patrick Tull
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 96 Kbps
Unabridged
Listening Length: 7 hours, 58 minutes
When Orwell went to the north of England in the thirties to find out how industrial workers lived, he not only observed but shared in their experience. He stayed in cramped lodgings and subsisted on the scant diet of the poor. He went down into the coal mines and watched the back-breaking labor of men whose net pay averaged $575 a year. And he knew the unemployed, those who had been out of work for so long they had sunk beyond despair. In this searing account, Orwell asks himself why socialism—which he felt could conserve human values from the ravages of industrialism—had so little appeal. His answer was a harsh critique of the socialism and socialists of his time.