Editing War with the Newts (section)

==As satire and social commentary==
The book is a dark [[satire]], poking fun extensively at the contemporary European politics, including [[colonialism]], [[fascism]] and [[Nazism]], [[Racial segregation|segregation]] in America, and the [[arms race]]. A notable satirical point is the mentioned research of a German scientist who has determined that the German Newts are actually a superior [[Nordic race]], and that as such they have a right to expand their living space at the expense of the inferior breeds of Newts.

The author's opinion of the United States' social problems also appears very pessimistic, as whenever that country is mentioned as dealing with a crisis, American mobs "[[Lynching|lynch]] negroes" as scapegoats.{{citation needed|date=April 2014}} Sometimes the Newts are shown in the same manner as the blacks, as when a white woman claims to have been [[rape]]d by one of them. Despite the physical impossibility of the act, people believe her and carry out Newt lynchings.

One passage, depicting the European nations willing to hand over [[China]] to the Newts as long as they are themselves spared and overriding the Chinese's desperate protests, seems a premonition of the [[Munich Agreement]], three years after the book was written{{snd}}in which the writer's own country suffered a similar fate in a futile effort to appease the Nazis.

Another passage seems to mock parochialism and [[isolationism]]. Czechs are following news of the Newts' advances and conquests with a distant interest, feeling that as a landlocked country far from any sea they themselves have nothing to worry{{Snd}}until the day that a Newt is seen swimming in Prague's own [[Vltava River]], and the Czechs suddenly realize that they are the next target.{{citation needed|date=April 2014}}

[[Darko Suvin]] has described ''War with the Newts'' as "the pioneer of all [[anti-fascist]] and [[anti-militarist]] SF".<ref>Darko Suvin, "Capek, Karel" in ''[[Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers]]'' by Curtis C. Smith. St. James Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0-912289-27-9}} (p.842-4).</ref>