This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batsch with Professor Peter Stansky. His new book is The Socialist Patriot.

George R. Well, who's given name as Eric Blair, but the suit, the nom de gare he takes upon himself early in his writing career is George for that very English of kings or well for a river near his home.

George R. Well, George R. Well and War. The Cold War begins almost immediately after 1945 the end of the war formally in 1948.

The question is when did George R. Well discover the Cold War and what drove him to a despair even more so than animal farm?

Professor you write that he was profoundly pessimistic when he approached 1984 which he published really near the close of his life.

He's suffering from tuberculosis and it will overwhelm him. What drove his pessimism between 45 and 49? Was there a single event?

Well, I think what drove his pessimism was his experience in Spain where he saw led by the communist and the Russian influence that it in a way, you know, betrayed, betrayed, betrayed the revolution.

As I say, I think what drove his pessimism was that people's love of leaders love of power that they'll do almost anything in order to preserve they personally staying in power.

That's why I felt the only solution was a regime, you know, the change, the change of leaders. When the Soviet suppressed the naval river, I'll try to get constant.

I've gotten the date but very early on in its history. He felt that indicated that that, that, you know, the state would go wrong.

So his optimism I think was driven by his love of English people and that he felt that England would would, you know, this famous definition of England in the line in the unicorn.

It's a family but it's a family with the wrong members in control and I think that suggests the two sides of his thinking.

So his pessimism was driven by the leaders love of power and his optimism was driven by that there would be a continual effort in England and hopefully elsewhere to make, you know, a better, better society.

And we're very conscious now of both the pressures for increased equal egalitarianism and tolerance but also the increase of prejudice and always being passed to restrict freedoms of abortion of sexuality.

And, you know, it's a fight that still continues. And of course, 1984 when it was originally published, it was very much and it was finance, not its original publication, but it was for translations and dissemination.

It was finance by the CIA and was bad that a secret agency was paying money to make this more people read the book. It's an interesting conundrum.

But it was, it was, it's been said by loose man and correctly that it was 1984 and animal farm with the two most important cultural documents of the Cold War.

But now, 1984 has great spirit leadership thanks to the growth of computers, which of course is very much a factor in 1984.

It's feeling that computers and AI and so forth may take over our lives and can change the past, which of course is very much 1984.

But also Trump has been absolutely fabulous for 1984 in that ultimate facts, etc. The sales of 1984 thanks to Trump skyrocketed, which I think is a nice touch.

The book is the Socialist Patriot, George Orwell and War, four wars. The first war, the Spanish Civil War, the second war in the Cold War. It ends with Orwell's very young death and what he could have written and said after 1984 would have been most determinative of how to understand Socialist Patriot.

Peter Stansky is the author, professor, emeritus at Stanford University. This is CBS Eye in the World. I'm John Batchler.

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