"Science and the machine are two inevitable facts with which all must reckon" (quotation from introduction). A collection of essays predicting developments in various fields including one by H. W. van Loon, one of my favorite authors. Generally, they seem to represent the moderate left in the thought of the time.

Whatever else the nitpickers have to say about Beard, he gathered together like-minded thinkers (Shih, Van Loon, Russel, Ludwig, etc.) and fought the extremes of the Bolsheviks and Fascists in the educational arena. Between the Wars, he brought cheerful competence and truth. Of course, he lost that battle. It is not really the perils of machines and science, or even an "inherent necessity in folly" [407], which destroyed his world and now appears poised to finish the job....