LANG, Herrmann

(? -?)

   Ostensibly a German writer and professor in the Polytechnic School at Karlsruhe, with publications in chemistry. However, there seems to have been no German edition of his sf novel, The Air Battle: A Vision of the Future (ostensibly trans 1859), and HL is most likely the pseudonym of a UK writer. The novel presents in short compass a remarkable portrait of a world several millennia hence, long after European civilization has been destroyed by floods and earthquakes; the peace-loving Black rulers of the country of Sahara dominate Africa, and in a final battle with other powers utilize their great heavier-than-air machines to establish a beneficial hegemony over the world. Remarkably for a novel of this period, miscegenation is strongly approved of, and the White woman whose adventures the plot traces is destined to marry a Black man.

   JC

   See also: HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; POLITICS; WAR.