Presenting itself as a biography of Rudolf "Rud" Whitlow, who is born with such an aggressive temperament that scarcely is he born but his monthly nurse exclaims: "It's a Holy Terror!" Rud Whitlow goes on to become the founder of the first world state, long a Wellsian dream.The events take place in the recognizable recent English past, though it should be noted that Wells warns that "Every person, place and thing in this story-even the countries in which it happens-are fictitious...The England, the America, the London in this book are not the England, America and London of geography and journalism, but England, America, and London transposed into imaginative narrative."