Nineteen Eighty-Four Dips into the Near Future" by John A. Hobson; "Brave New World" (1932) by Aldous Huxley; "We" (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin which he reviewed in 1946; and "The Managerial Revolution" (1940) by James Burnham predicting perpetual war among three totalitarian superstates. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like "A Modern Utopia" (1905) by H. G. Wells. Extrapolating from World War II, the novel's pastiche parallels the politics and rhetoric at war's end—the changed alliances at the "Cold War's" (1945–91) beginning; the Ministry of Truth derives from the BBC's overseas service, controlled by the Ministry of
Nineteen Eighty-Four Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics". When it was first published, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" received critical acclaim. V. S. Pritchett, reviewing the novel for the "New Statesman" stated: "I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down." P. H. Newby, reviewing "Nineteen Eighty-Four" for "The Listener" magazine, described it as "the most arresting political novel written by an Englishman since Rex Warner's "The Aerodrome.""