It Can't Happen Here

xv, 384 pp. Includes a new introduction by Michael Meyer, and a bibliography of Lewis's works, as well as works of biography and criticism. A satirical work of dystopian fiction envisioning an American dictatorship. The causes for the descent into fascism are authentic, making the novel an insightful glimpse of what it looks like to trade one set of evils for another. Lewis wrote the book during the Great Depression, basing the dictatorship on Hitler's, but replacing hateful indoctrination with misleading appeals to American values. Many believe the novel to be a direct reaction to the possible candidacy of Huey Long for president in 1936. It was published five years after Lewis became the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lewis also won (and declined) the Pulitzer Prize for his 1925 novel Arrowsmith.