Both books share some particular ideas (like communal food preparation for private homes); and the concept of reincarnation is fundamental to both, which is not typical of the utopian literature of the era as a whole.

)[6] Brooks also foresees a vast land reclamation project that turns the Sahara Desert into a region of lakes and farmland.

[7] Brooks anticipates a number of developments that would come about in the decades after his book, including a juvenile justice system that is empowered to remove children from homes with unsuitable parents.

In what may be the most surprising feature in the book, dogs are taught to understand human speech and respond with a simple code of staccato barks[9] — a foreshadowing of modern communication with apes and other animals using methods like sign language.

"[11] Brooks uses several elements of spiritualism in his book, including hypnotism, somnambulism, clairvoyance, mediumship, and automatic writing; reincarnation and life after death are important themes.

Brooks chose the unusual and radical approach of having his hero die, then reawaken in the body of another man living a century later.

Society has enjoyed vast improvement in the intervening century: the city of Columbia, formerly New York, is cleaner, better organized, more peaceful, healthier, and generally better than before.

Newcome the inventor concentrates on improving food production; he receives a stipend from the state, and his inventions go to benefit society as a whole.

Brooks blends the technical and the spiritual: when Newcome shows the protagonist the new "harmonic telegraph," Atherton/Amesbury speculates about the possibilities of both radio and telepathy.

The daughter of the house, Irene, was used as an experimental subject in hypnotism by her late physician father; she is a spontaneous medium and clairvoyant.

Byron Alden Brooks (1845–1911) was a native New Yorker, born in the small town of Theresa (a name that he employs for important characters in Earth Revisited).