It Can't Happen Here: What Will Happen When America Has a Dictator?

Harry Sinclair Lewis

Renard Press Ltd

About this ebook

Published during the heyday of fascism in Europe, It Can’t Happen Here is a chilling cautionary tale by one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, which is still startlingly relevant almost a century later.

Charting the rise to power of Berzelius ‘Buzz’ Windrip, who whips his supporters into a frenzy while promising drastic reform under a banner of patriotism and traditional values, It Can’t Happen Here decries the tactics used by politicians to mobilise voters, and exposes the danger of authoritarianism arising from populist platforms, and the chaos such regimes can leave in their wake.

'An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs.' (Guardian)

'The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.' (Salon)

About the author

Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) was an American writer and playwright who, in 1930, became the first US writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is best remembered for his novels Main Street, Babbitt and Arrowsmith, which attracted praise for their representation of working women, and for his 1935 novel cautioning against the rise of fascism in America, It Can’t Happen Here.