George Orwell

            In the 1st 50 years of the 20th Century, it came to pass that revolutionary turmoil in the name of social progress brought humanity to the gates of destruction. Out of these flames of war arose several huge Political systems that bestrode the globe. One of these, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was founded on the ideals of social equality and sharing. Instead the people of the USSR had a nightmare unleashed on them unrivaled in the archives of human history. Only once in the passing of human fictional literature has the sensitive horror of this regime been displayed once, much less twice. Only one man has the insight and the genius to portray this regime for what it was, a failed experiment of fatally flawed dogma. Only he understood that in the end, humans cannot defeat human nature, because it is inherit in them. To truly understand the role that these two books, 1984, and Animal Farm played in our society, we must first understand the man that wrote them.
             Eric Arthur Blair was born in 1903 in the Indian Village of Motihari, which lies near the border of Nepal in north-eastern India. During this period the Indian sub-continent was part of the British Empire, and the country was run by the British middle class, which Eric's family was a member of. His father, Richard, was an agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service, and his grandfather had served in the Indian Army. Eric grew up with a deep distrust of colonialism due to these facts, as his father played a small, but important role in the two defeats of china in the 19th century, that of keeping the opium dens very, very well supplied. His mother, 18 years younger than his father, was the daughter of a French tradesman. Eric also has a sister, Marjorie, who was five years older then Eric. In 1907 the family, minus Eric's father who stayed in India until he retired in 1912, moved back to England.