I Read Books: The Iron Heel

Jack London was perhaps at his best as a short story author, and did well articulating poor, working class men faced with adversity. I am, of course, reviewing The Iron Heel, his political novel which combines a broad sweep of history, socialist theory, and a future dystopia, from the point of view of a professor’s daughter.

The novel is in theory the Everhard manuscript, discovered some seven hundred years in the future and annotated by one of the scholars of the socialist utopia, the Brotherhood of Man. Starting in 1909, (the date The Iron Heel comes from), Avis falls in love with Ernest Everhard* a socialist firebrand. He makes a number of more or less interesting criticisms of capitalism and the powers that be ruin Avis’ father after he publishes a book on how science is used to serve those powers. War starts with Germany, (good prediction) but a series of general strikes stops it (bad).

The Trusts combine to control the Republican and Democrat parties; they split the unions by making some of them favoured; the Socialist congressmen elected are arrested after a bomb is thrown in Congress (Ernest defends himself by saying that if he threw a bomb it would not have just made a lot of smoke and noise). Martial law is declared and strikes put down by force.

The Iron Heel of the Oligarchy rises and takes control, creating what is recognisably a fascist state (good prediction) though not one that worships heroic leadership (bad). A socialist underground movement of spies, saboteurs and assassins comes into being in response, and Ernest and the other Socialist congressmen escape all on the same day. Avis’ narrative, supposedly written on the eve of the second revolt (1932), is cut off during the dying days of the Chicago commune during the first revolt (1917).

Read This: For an early dystopia, and the concepts of class and economy present during the early 20th century
Don’t Read This: For a happy fun adventure time.
Out of Copyright: You can read it online for free.


* This name is not subtle