The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears, and prejudices. Wells said that the plot arose from a discussion with his brother Frank about the catastrophic effect of the British on indigenous Tasmanians. What would happen, he wondered, if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the Tasmanians?[5] At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel The Time Machine.
At the time of the novel's publication the British Empire had conquered and colonised dozens of territories in Africa, Oceania, North and South America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and the Atlantic and Pacific islands.
While Invasion Literature had provided an imaginative foundation for the idea of the heart of the British Empire being conquered by foreign forces, it was not until The War of the Worlds that the reading public was presented with an adversary completely superior to themselves.[44] A significant motivating force behind the success of the British Empire was its use of sophisticated technology; the Martians, also attempting to establish an empire on Earth, have technology superior to their British adversaries.[45] In The War of the Worlds, Wells depicted an imperial power as the victim of imperial aggression, and thus perhaps encouraging the reader to consider imperialism itself.[44]
Wells suggests this idea in the following passage:
And before we judge them [the Martians] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished Bison and the Dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?
— Chapter I, "The Eve of the War"
image description: white background. bulk of words are black. faded gray words read time (6:02 PM 03 Nov 3) plus the handle of the tweeter (@ DavidLeftyMA)
the tweeter's name is in black also and reads: David, Socialist Marital Artist
bulk of the words: I knew HG Wells was a socialist, but I was today years old when I learned he wrote War of the Worlds and the premise was "what if aliens did to the British what the British did to the Aboriginal folks of Australia?" as an anti-imperialist statement.
end description.
I had to explain to someone once that the reason there were so many alien stories was NOT because "they" were hiding it from us, but because it allows us to examine controversial topics in a new (often but obviously not always) neutral setting. "Alien invasion as an allegory for colonialism" is one of my go to examples; but I didn't realize HOW LONG it had been used.
