Regular marked price: $15.00Discount Price: $10.20
Cost Savings: $4.80 (32%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN num: 9780451216588
ISBN number: 045121658X
Label: NAL Trade
Manufacturer: NAL Trade
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: October 04, 2005
Publishing house: NAL Trade
Sale Popularity Level: 28650
Studio: NAL Trade
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Brief Book Summary:
The only one of Sinclair Lewis's later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
The very first reviewer, Charles Haberl, does an excellent job describing the content of this insightful book and rightly draws the similarities to our own times.
I only wish to add a few points:
First of all, Sinclair Lewis drew his inspiration for writing this book from his wife, Dorothy Thompson. Dorothy was a journalist born in New York and was listed along with Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the two most influential women in America by "Time" magazine in 1939. Dorothy was outspoken against the Hitler regime and became the very first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, and folks, this was in 1934! Hitler hadn't even shown his hand yet! AND, interestingly enough, an astute Dorothy Thompson wrote an article after WWII "cautioning American Jews about Zionism as it would lead to dual loyalty". Today, we see this dual loyalty in the Neo-cons who have sold their American soul to their militant worshipping satan...
The title of the book, "It Can't Happen Here", about "it happening here" is an obvious political knock on those who actually think this can't happen in the USA. Under Dorothy Thomnpson's influence, Sinclair Lewis was shown how fragile democracy is and how easity it can be subverted as detailed in Charles Haberl's review above. This book is also mentioned in the book, Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s as being part of the culture in the American dictatorship milieu (see my reveiew of that relevant work).
The other thing I found very interesting about "It Can't Happen Here" is the mention by Sinclair Lewis of "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Perhaps this is the pamphlet that served as Lewis's blueprint for the tactics used by his dictatorship regime.
And finally, I'd like to point out one final, but most pertinent contemporary parallel of Lewis's dictatorship: "...in a couple of years now, ON THE GROUND OF PROTECTING US, the Buzz Windrip dictatorship will be regimenting everything, from where we may pray to what detective stories we may read".
Why is it that so few people can see through this TERROR, TERROR, TERROR, mantra of our current administration?
Rated by buyers -
This is one of the most unusual offerings from novelist Sinclair Lewis. Unlike many of his previous books, it was written in great haste and the subject matter is exclusively related to electoral politics. In some respects, the material is dated, unlike other totalitarian nightmare novels like "1984" and "Brave New World," because it is set in a fixed place and time. The election in contest is that of 1936 and the question to be answered is whether or not voters weary of the Great Depression are prepared to sacrifice individual liberties and accept fascist dictatorial rule.
Given the political climate in the contemporary USA, this warning from the past still seems relevant today. Too many people seem willing to follow the Pied Piper rather than asking questions and making difficult choices.
Rated by buyers -
"It Can't Happen Here" is a staggering read, in terms of its unflinching cruel look at reality - the fact that something like what Sinclair Lewis describes can very easily happen here in America. Lewis' novel examines the very fragile nature of democracy and how everyday citizens can get swept up in the charisma of a fascist leader. What may make the novel even more astounding in premise is that it was written during the Great Depression before Hitler's most unfathomable intents were made known; much of what happens throughout America in the novel mirrors what happened in Nazi Germany with ordinary citizens turning a blind eye to injustice in the name of reform and prosperity.
The story is told mainly through the viewpoint of Doremus Jessup, the editor of a daily newspaper in a small Vermont village, who always tells the truth no matter what. He witnesses firsthand (and through radio and newswire accounts) the fervor that surrounds the presidential candidate, Buzz Windrip and rightfully fears what will happen to America when Buzz is elected. And with good reason, for Windrip's 'Fifteen Point Plan' includes an impossible scheme to make every citizen rich, except of course for the Jews and Negroes. With Buzz elected as president, America quickly becomes a nightmare of a dictatorship, with everything from speech to education being controlled, with subversives either killed or placed in concentration camps. How can Doremus tell the truth and provide for his family if it means putting everyone close to him in danger? Are one man's moral obligations to what is right worth sacrificing everything for? It's a question that Doremus struggles with throughout the novel.
Sinclair Lewis penned a brilliant and scary satire with "It Can't Happen Here", a story balanced by its odd wit and humor. But the story is too often sidetracked by its very own main character; parts of the story meander for pages with no apparent end in sight. It's almost as if Lewis had more to say on the subject but wasn't quite sure how to work it in to the story. Despite the setting of the mid-1930s, the truly frightening aspect of "It Can't Happen Here" is exactly how applicable it is to today's world. Readers will recognize certain fears and hysteria that have marked these few years since September eleventh, and in a year of presidential elections, this story may make readers think a little more carefully about the power of persuasion.
Rated by buyers -
Lee Roscoe has recently (© 2005) adapted Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here to the stage. This play is a militant agitprop work and is available to people who want to produce it for an audience in a militant perspective to fight against the present erring developments of Bush's presidency and to advocate the necessity to impeach him and his vice-president as the last defense against their systematic attack on the Constitution, hence the American people and the World's population. This enables us to rediscover the plot imagined by Sinclair Lewis in the mid 30s who was afraid of the possibility for a populist candidate to become President of the US and lead the country to some kind of fascist dictatorship. Apparently this fear is being revived in the world, or rather in some countries by the war on terror launched by President Bush and that has brought some fairly frightening developments against basic civil rights: the possibility for the police to know what you borrow or check in and out in public libraries and the restriction under which the librarian is not to tell you about it; the negation of habeas corpus for a whole set of people who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo for years without any basic constitutional or plainly universally recognized rights like the possibility to communicate with the outside world, the right to have a lawyer, the right to be informed about the charges that are leveled at them, the right to be tried in a normal court in due time and following proper procedures, etc (the procedure is so unbelievably wrong that quite a few of these prisoners have been released without any charges after several years of detention amounting to so many years of suffering, social cultural or professional damage, and even psychological torturing, and no damages, compensation or reparation when released); and of course the normal reaction of some American people who believed what they were told and started leveling harsh words at opponents and even at times taking harsh measures against opponents. The text of this play is being circulated on the Internet. The same mindset is developing in other countries, like for instance in France where some consider that the election of Nicolas Sarkozy for instance is leading to the same kind of mechanism that will necessarily lead to a police state if not fascism.
The process imagined by Sinclair Lewis is simple: a populist elected candidate and the defense of the absolute freedom of all markets to liberate the creative energy of capitalism and get us out of all possible crises. This will lead to work camps for unemployed people; the ruin of all independent newspapers and the hunting down of all alternative expression and media as unpatriotic if not anti-patriotic; the ruin of all businesses that do not support the policy of the President; the creation of some kind of militia to keep an eye on everyone; the increase of the powers of this militia that would have authority over all other police forces and even over justice. Of course one of the very first triggering elements this President would need is some menace from a foreign country, hence a war against this menacing country, be it true or imagined, and a designated accomplice inside the country defined as anarchist, communist or terrorist. And the old world is then perverted enough for fascism to be born in the very sanctuary of human rights and civil liberties, and then "M and M" becomes Militia Man.
It is interesting to see this revival. It reveals several elements that we must keep in mind if we want to understand what is happening in the world. People are really afraid of the future in this changing world. People are afraid of change because it precisely is change and comfort means no change.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
Rated by buyers -
As other reviews here have stated, this is not a subtle book. Anyone familiar with Lewis's other works will have no problem recognizing him here: he is heavy-handed and obvious, his writing is ham-fisted and clunkey.
But the book works, for the same reasons his more well known books works. Lewis has a fantastic ear for language and tone. His satire is always spot-on. Sure, his characters are exaggerated to the point of being caricatures, but the kernal of truth is always there amid the hyperbole.
It's not Babbit or Main Street, but a good read for Lewis fans.
Find other books like this one:
