The Iron HeelGrosset & Dunlap, 1907 - 354 pages The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908.Generally considered to be "the earliest of the modern Dystopian", it chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably the novel in which Jack London's socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.[citation needed]The book is unusual among London's writings (and in the literature of the time in general) in being a first-person narrative of a woman protagonist written by a man. Much of the narrative is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, including events in San Francisco and Sonoma County. |
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abyss agents answered army arose asked Asmunsen Avis Everhard became Biedenbach Bishop Morehouse Black Hundreds blood bomb called Calvin capital capitalist century Chicago Church cities Colonel Ingram Colonel Van Gilbert comrades cried death destroyed dollars dream Ernest Ernest never escape eyes face fact farmers father favored unions Fighting Groups Garthwaite Glen Ellen Grangers Hammerfield hand happened Hartman head hundred industrial Iron Heel Jackson Jackson's arm knew Kowalt labor castes laughed leaders learned lived looked machine matter Mercenaries middle class militia millions mind never night Oligarchy organization Pell Street Peter Donnelly Philomath Plutocracy profits proletariat railroad refuge Revolution revolutionists secret service Sierra Mills slaves social socialists society soldiers Sonoma Mountain soul Standard Oil street strength strike talked tell terrible things thought thousand Timothy Donnelly tion to-day toiled trusts turned United Wickson young
Popular passages
Page 105 - I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. "As a result of the war corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed.
Page 105 - A power has risen up in the Government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.
Page 139 - Provided, however, That any officer or enlisted man of the militia who shall refuse or neglect to present himself for such muster, upon being called forth as herein prescribed, shall be subject to trial by courtmartial and shall be punished as such court-martial may direct.
Page 48 - We all know that, as things actually are, many of the most influential and most highly remunerated members of the bar in every centre of wealth make it their special task to work out bold and ingenious schemes by which their very wealthy clients, individual or corporate, can evade the laws which are made to regulate in the interest of the public the use of great wealth.
Page 326 - ... pillaged warehouses, drunk with hatred, drunk with lust for blood — men, women, and children, in rags and tatters, dim ferocious intelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and all the fiendlike stamped in, apes, and tigers, anaemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden, wan faces from which vampire society had sucked the juice of life, bloated forms swollen with physical grossness and corruption, withered hags and death's heads bearded like patriarchs, festering...
Page 98 - And we shall give you an answer in terms of lead. Power, you have proclaimed the king of words. Very good. Power it shall be. And in the day that we sweep to victory at the ballot-box, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we have constitutionally and peacefully captured, and you demand what we are going to do about it—in that day, I say, we shall answer you; and in roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns shall our answer be couched.
Page 8 - The question of how many angels could dance on the point of a pin no longer is absurd in molecular physics, with its discovery of how broad that point actually is, and what a part invisible electronic 'messengers
Page 36 - The right of masters to dispose of the time of their slaves has been distinctly recognized by the Creator of all things, who is surely at liberty to vest the right of property over any object in whomsoever he pleases.
Page 86 - In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the cave-man, and that his producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, no other conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged...
Page 326 - They're not our comrades," he shouted in my ear. The inner doors to the entrance were locked and bolted. We could not escape. The next moment the front of the column went by. It was not a column, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the people of the abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters. I had seen the people of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it ; but I found that I was now looking on it for the first time....