IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis

[revree]

Anyone read this? Supposed to be about America going fascist. Was written in the 1930's? I am trying to buy a copy but nobody has one in print.

[SheilaT]

1. It's an amazing book.

I picked up up a couple of years ago on Amazon. Sometimes used copies are readily available, sometimes not. Get it from the library if you can't purchase one. It ought to be in print.

It's a little hard to follow in that it makes many, many contemporary political references that are simply lost to us who weren't alive then. It assumes that Roosevelt won't seek another term in 1936, and an extreme right-winger seeks the presidency.

Over and over again various characters say, "It can't happen here" when confronted with the looming right-wing takeover of the country.

Do get it.

[mikehiggins]

2. Hard to get

I had to hunt around for some time to get a copy from a book reseller. Try Amazon and B&N first. They may be able to point you in the right direction.

I hunted it down on the net but I forgot where I got it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Everyone should try to get a copy, however. It woke me up to reality way back in the 50s and I recommend it to everyone.

It can't happen here is the biggest lie we Americans tell ourselves. It wasn't true then. It isn't true now.

[Narraback]

26. Barnes & Noble has the paper back $8...

Great read. I am reading now.

[serryjw]

3. AMAZON has it!

for $60!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/040420158X/ref=lp_g_1//103-0742473-0767820?condition=all

[Liberal Veteran]

4. You can download it here...

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

[JNelson6563]

14. Thank LV

Bookmarked for later. Much appreciate link.

Cheers-- :toast:

[Nay]

5. I read it many years ago, and have recently tried to find it at the

library with no success. Yes, it was about America going fascist, and I wish I could remember more details. It revolved around a family who could not believe what was happening around them, why their friends and neighbors couldn't see through the fascist president either before or after the election, etc., etc. Would love to read it again.

Have you tried the used book sites like Abe Books? I haven't tried to buy one -- just tried to borrow from library -- but you might start there.

[berry]

6. If you don't mind an e-text, you can read this online.

There may be other sites as well, but the whole book is available at:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/

You can't just download the whole thing, though. You have to do it chapter by chapter.

I've been wanting to read this too. So thanks for mentioning it--I finally got motivated to check for an e-copy.

[shraby]

7. Try inter-library loan

I find many books that way

[glitch]

10. there's a link at the bottom for a single file

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/complete.html

Thanks for posting!

[AwareOne]

12. Jack London also wrote a book about America going fascist

called The Iron Heel. It is told in the person of a widow of a resistance fighter against the American govt.

[timtom]

35. not true.

I just downloaded it as a zip file of html files. Scroll below the chapter titles and you'll see it.

[PassingFair]

8. An excellent book, and SO topical...

found a copy at a second-hand bookstore. Makes you wanna leave for Canada NOW. (Also makes me glad we have the internet!)

[grasswire]

18. It isn't going to help to go to Canada, my friend.

With the coming problems of Peak Oil, no country will be truly stable or safe. I'm just coming to grips with the reality that the world order we have known for the past forty years will not exist by a few years from now, no matter what America can do about it.

[depakid]

9. Here's a fine application of the book to present day America:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-15.htm

[trof]

19. Many, many thanks.

For the first time in my 63 years I understand what fascism is.
You're never too old to learn.
And now I understand the why and how of what is happening in my country today.
I am seriously forever in your debt.
trof

[xray s]

11. I found a paperback copy at B&N a few years ago

[Gin]

16. I think that time has arrived......

< "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information>

good description of the current day media... "deliberate poisoners of public information."

[TheCentepedeShoes]

13. I found a copy

at an excellent local used bookstore about a month or so ago. I had never heard of it until someone mentioned it here on DU. Got "It Can't Happen Here" plus a single volume containing "Main Street, "Babbit," and "Arrowsmith" -- all for FIVE BUCKS!!
One part that got to me is in Chapter 13 where Doremus Jessup laments his inability to make plans for himself or his family. It's like I've been feeling of late, like waiting for the next shoes to drop (the source of my DU name). He feels this sense of futility over coming events. This is a truly amazing book.

[seventhson]

20. Jeez - Centipede - you have described EXACTLY my emotional state

Ever since election night 2000 I have had this horrific foreboding sense.

9-11 barely surprised me and my family was pissed beause all day long I said it was Bush's doing.

As a Holocaust researcher and historian of sorts (I do lecture at Holocaust educator seminars) - I KNEW of Goebbel's theory of "The Electoral BOMB" - i.e. an event so horrific that it scares the electorate into following its leader anywhere to protect it from "foreign terrorists" (Heiden describes this in his book, "Der Fuhrer" 1944. Hitler's attack on his own Congress, the Reichstag firebombing, was such an "Electoral Bomb". SO was 9-11.

But the aftershock of the loss and pain of knowing that Hitler's political descendant was stealing the eelection pained me more than I ever imagined it could. It is LIKE PTSD (and I work with veterans and abused women and children so I know the characteristics of it).

Now I wait the inevitable October Surprise and anticipate a NEW Bush "Electoral Bomb". I was in a state of serious sadness and depression when I heard about the mushroom cloud last night in North Korea.

When I went to Israel several years ago (before the current crisis provoked, IMO, by Sharon) I sensed the same fear among the people there (Both Palestinians and Israelis) - though it was relatively calm at the time.

The anticipation of horrors is palpable.

It is just too reminiscentt of the rise of the Nazis for any comfort.

[seventhson]

30. I love the du name imagery, BTW

hundreds of other shoes about to drop

scary

[seventhson]

15. "Der Fuhrer" by Konrad Heiden and "The Plague" by Camus

should also be on everyone's booklists these days.

Heiden's book tracing the way Hitler rose to power and the men around him is chillingly reminiscent of what is happening now. The German "Patriot" and "Homeland Security" Acts dissolving their rights after the Reichstag Fire is SO MUCH like 9-11 that it will chill you to the bone.

That book was written in 1944 but it reads like what we are seeing today with Bush and his crooked and immoral inner circle.

When you know that the Bush family financed Hitler's rise to power via Nazi industrialists and made a fortune from the Holocaust, the book takes on a new meaning. It describes Bush's blueprint as based on Hitler's rise and consolidation of power.

Camus' book is about totalitarianism and fascism. THAT is what the plague is and no matter how we try to stamp it out (as America ALMOST did in WWII but we let the perpetraitors like the Bushes walk away unpunished and with their money intact)it will , like a plague, live on in dark and hidden germy and necrotic places until one day it sees the light of day and reemerges more deadly than ever. (The movie with William Hurt and Raul Julia is just awesomely scarey - set in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

It IS Happening here!

Resist!

If we lose in November we are ALL in danger beyond our wildest imaginings.

[grasswire]

17. I found a copy in 2000...

...and read it then. Some parts are a bit over the top, but generally quite illuminating, especially demonstrating how some people will go along with the oppressors in order to gain their own power and fiefdom. We sure see that happening now.

Lots of copies for various prices are available through the used bookseller service of http://www.abebooks.com.

Oddly enough, the first listing there is a review of the book by The Nation magazine in 1935. I'd sure love to read that!

And I'm amazed to see on a search of Powell's Books in Portland that they have NO copy of this book. I wonder if there's an active campaign on the right to buy up copies and destroy them.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

21. Try to look on the bright side

Maybe there's an active campaign on OUR side to get hold of the book and read it. :)

[Hun Joro]

24. I love abebooks.com

You can find just about anything there, and buying secondhand books is a great way to recycle.

[faithnotgreed]

34. agree with everything you said. welcome & ill check out that site

[coreystone]

22. I have a copy which I purchased in 1978 ! ...

It is a paperback book "Signet" edition. I paid $1.25. The book holds a copyright year of 1935, and, was released in 1936. The copyright was renewed in 1963 by Michael Lewis, and, contains an introduction by Jay Richard Kennedy (copyright 1970).

At the time that I had purchased it, I was extremely disturbed about the social ramifications of "behavioral psychology" in the Watson and B. F. Skinner modes; and, how this pseudo technology could have such an impact upon the possibilities of social engineering. Believe me, I was so disturbed about the possibilities that I had totally internalized my imagination concerning them into a nervous breakdown. I had to drop out of school in the the fall of 1977. During the spring of 1978, I read voraciously. I would check into a local library at 8 AM in the morning. From 12 NOON to 1 PM, I would lunch. From 1 PM until 5 PM I would resume my reading spot. At 5 PM I would do dinner. From 6 PM until 11 PM I would continue. I would wake up the next morning and go through the same routine. This happened 5 days a week for about 4 months.

Eventually, I got over my obsession. But, I have never forgotten the possibilities! I will try my local bookshop tomorrow to see what I can find out about the availability of "It Can't Happen Here". It is definitely a MUST read.

:kick:

[Chelsea Patriot]

23. Isn't it funny how this book is OOP?

Main Street has always been one of my favorite American novels.

Earlier this year, I remembered "It Can't Happen Here". I could find it no where in NYC, even the much vaunted Strand didn't have a copy.

What Media Giant is responsible for publishing Sinclair Lewis' works?

[coreystone]

25. When I first started reading this thread - "Fahrenheit 451"...

simply exploded in my mind.

[Flammable Materials]

27. Has The Copyright Expired On This Book?

Is it in the public domain?

If it is, then I would be more than happy to make a "book-on-demand" version of it available at cost.

[coreystone]

28. I don't know....other than the last copyright by Michael Lewis in ...

1963...?

[Zomby Woof]

29. it's good

Figures it is out of print. I had to read it in a cheap paperback back in the 90's even as his other books were in hardcovers.

Try www.powells.com, and see if they have a used copy somewhere.

[grasswire]

32. I checked Powell's the other day...

..and they had nothing.

I did notice several copies available on eBay, though.

[coreystone]

31. YES! It still is in print!....

I have contacted my local book shop. They have two distributors which are still supplying "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis. It is published under the "New American Library" series by "Signet Books". It is a paperback with a list price of $7.95. It is currently back ordered by one of the distributors, and, the other distributor may, or, may not have copies in stock .

If anyone would care to order from the local bookshop, they would be pleased to ship.

The Book King
94 Merchants Row
Rutland, Vermont 05701

Tel: [phone]

They close at 6 PM EST!

[krkaufman]

33. eBay has a few copies n/t