H.G. Wells' World Brain, from 1937, is about his vision for a universal, free, and permanent digital encyclopedia (a "World Encyclopaedia") that would centralize all human knowledge to foster global understanding, education, and world peace by combating bad information and ignorance, essentially a predigital Wikipedia or the concept behind Google's vast book digitization. He argued this system, a "mental clearing house," would empower citizens with verified facts, preventing the disastrous decisions made between World Wars by giving leaders and people access to the best available knowledge.
