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The Iron Heel
''The Iron Heel'' is a dystopian and political novel in the form of science fiction by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. Synopsis The main premise of the book is the rise of a socialist mass movement in the United Statesstrong enough to have a real chance of winning national elections, getting to power, and implementing a radical socialist regime. Conservatives feel alarmed and threatened by this prospect, to the point of seizing power and establishing a brutal dictatorship in order to avert it. The novel is told via the framing device of a manuscript found centuries after the action takes place and footnotes by a scholar, Anthony Meredith, circa 2600 AD or 419 B.O.M. (the Brotherhood of Man). Jack London writes at two levels, sporadically having Meredith correcting the errors of Avis Everhard through his own future prism, while at the same time exposing the often incomplete understanding of this distant future perspective. Meredith's introduction also reve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack London
John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction. London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal welfare, Labor rights, workers' rights and socialism.Swift, John N. "Jack London's 'The Unparalleled Invasion': Germ Warfare, Eugenics, and Cultural Hygiene." American Literary Realism, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 59–71. .Hensley, John R. "Eugenics and Social Darwinism in Stanley Waterloo's 'The Story of Ab' and Jack London's 'Before Adam.'" Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 25, no. 1, 2002, pp. 23–37. . London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor. Bankrupt is not the only legal status that an insolvent person may have, meaning the term ''bankruptcy'' is not a synonym for insolvency. Etymology The word ''bankruptcy'' is derived from Italian language, Italian , literally meaning . The term is often described as having originated in Renaissance Italy, where there allegedly existed the tradition of smashing a banker's bench if he defaulted on payment. However, the existence of such a ritual is doubted. History In Ancient Greece, bankruptcy did not exist. If a man owed and he could not pay, he and his wife, children or servants were forced into "debt slavery" until the creditor recouped losses through their Manual labour, physical labour. Many city-states in ancient Greece lim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
20th Century In Literature
Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century (1901 to 2000). The main periods in question are often grouped by scholars as Modernist literature, Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to 1990 respectively, roughly using World War II as a transition point. After 1960, the somewhat malleable term " contemporary literature" widely appears. Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are generally applicable to and stem from Western literary history, scholars often use them in reference to Asian, Latin American and African literatures. Non-western writers, in particular in Postcolonial literature, have been at the forefront of literary evolution during the twentieth century. Technological advances facilitated lower production cost for books, coupled with rising populations and literacy rates, which resulted in a significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Canticle For Leibowitz
''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' is a post-apocalyptic social science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr., first published in 1959. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the book spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserve the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the world is again ready for it. The novel is a fix-up of three short stories Miller published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' that were inspired by the author's participation in the bombing of the monastery at the Battle of Monte Cassino during World War II. The book is considered one of the classics of science fiction and has never been out of print. It won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel, and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brave New World
''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, '' Brave New World Revisited'' (1958), and with his final novel, ''Island'' (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared as an inversion counterpart to George Orwell's '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949). In 1998 and 1999, the Modern Library ranked ''Brave New World'' at number 5 on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century. In 2003, Robert McCrum, writing for ''The Observer'', included ''Brave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
We (novel)
''We'' () is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin (often anglicised as Eugene Zamiatin) that was written in 1920–1921. It was first published as an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York, with the original Russian text first published in 1952. The novel describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarianism, totalitarian state that is rebelled against by the protagonist, D-503 (). It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre. George Orwell said that Aldous Huxley's 1931 ''Brave New World'' must be partly derived from ''We'', although Huxley denied this. Orwell's own ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949) and ''Animal Farm'' were also inspired by ''We'', as are many other contemporary dystopian novels. Setting ''We'' is set in the far future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State,The Ginsburg and Randall translations use the phrasing "One State". Guerney uses "The One State"—ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Science Fiction
Social science fiction or sociological science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, usually (but not necessarily) soft science fiction, concerned less with technology or space opera and more with speculation about society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropology" and speculates about human behavior and interactions.Archaeology in Fiction, Stories, and Novels . about.com. May 28, 2008 Exploration of fictional societies is a significant aspect of science fiction, allowing it to perform predictive ('''' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utopian And Dystopian Fiction
Utopian and dystopian fiction are subgenres of speculative fiction that explore extreme forms of social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to readers. Dystopian fiction offers the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos. Some novels combine both genres, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take depending on its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other types of speculative fiction. More than 400 utopian works in the English language were published prior to the year 1900, with more than a thousand others appearing during the 20th century. This increase is partially associated with the rise in popularity of science fiction and young adult fiction more generally, but also larger scale social change tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Outlook (New York City)
''The Outlook'' (1870–1935) was a weekly magazine, published in New York City. Publication history ''The Christian Union'' (1870–1893) ''The Outlook'' began publication January 1, 1870, as ''The Christian Union'' (1870–1893). ''The Outlook'' (1893–1928) The magazine was titled ''The Outlook'' from 1893 to 1928, reflecting a shift of focus from religious subjects to social and political issues. In 1900, the ranking weekly magazines of news and opinion were ''The Independent'' (1870), ''The Nation'' (1865), ''The Outlook'' (1870), and, with a different emphasis, ''The Literary Digest'' (1890). ''The Outlook and Independent'' (1928–1932) In 1928 ''The Independent'' was merged with ''The Outlook'' to form ''The Outlook and Independent''. ''The New Outlook'' (1932–1935) From 1932 to 1935 the magazine was published as ''The New Outlook''. Its last issue was dated June 1935. Notable contributors *Theodore Roosevelt was an associate editor for ''The Outlook'', afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Platt Brett Sr
George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George, son of Andrew I of Hungary Places South Africa * George, South Africa, a city ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa, a city * George, Missouri, a ghost town * George, Washington, a city * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Computing * George (algebraic compiler) also known as 'Laning and Zierler system', an algebraic compiler by Laning and Zierler in 1952 * GEORGE (computer), early computer built by Argonne National Laboratory in 1957 * GEORGE (operating system), a range of operating systems (George 1–4) for the ICT 1900 range of computers in the 1960s * GEORGE (programming language), an autocode system invented by Charles Leonard Hambl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie. Karl Marx argued that this capitalist oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and to take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a socialist society free from class distinctions. Roman Republic and Empire The constituted a social class of Roman citizens who owned little or no property. The name presumably originated with the census, which Roman authorities conducted every five years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and Employee benefits, benefits, improving Work (human activity), working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called ''union dues''. The union representatives in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members through internal democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of its members, known as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
