This book, originally published in Britain as "An Englishman Looks at the World" is a collection of journalistic pieces by H. G. Wells written between the year of 1909 and 1914. Included in the collection is an account of "My First Flight," a long essay entitled "The Great State" that prefigured many of the themes of The Outline of History, and a philosophical essay entitled "The So-Called Science of Sociology," arguing that sociology would never be a science because "counting, classification, measurement, the whole fabric of mathematics, is subjective and deceitful, and... the uniqueness of individuals is the objective truth."