Quote- “During the ages of hardships and incessant warning between their own various races, as well as with the green men, and before they had fitted themselves to the changed conditions, much of the high civilization and many of the arts of the fair-haired Martians had been lost” (33)
Comment-This quote invoked images that are familiar in our own world, images of civilizations collapsing, its accomplishments being lost to the sands of time, and its people scattered amongst the debris of what once was a nation. It’s an all too familiar site and story, which made me wonder If Burroughs was trying to in some way, warn the then modern era of what could happen to the world if war was to continue its eternal rampage on the planet. Since this text was released in 1917, The First World War ravaged the European continent, and perhaps Burroughs wrote this text as a means of anti-war propaganda to tell a tale of what happens to a society once the war ends.
Question-After reading the foreword, I still have no idea as to the reason why Burroughs wrote this text, thus I’m left wondering, what was the message Burroughs was attempting to convey through his work?