“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon
It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Written during the Great Depression, when the country 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, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news.
- ISBN10 045121658X
- ISBN13 9780451216588
- Publish Date 4 October 2005 (first published 1 October 1970)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Penguin Books Australia
- Imprint Signet
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 400
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451216588