# Alternative historical novels postulating dictatorship in the USA **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 4, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571 "2004-10-04T23:46:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/1 "2004-10-04T23:46:12Z")
Sinclair Lewis’ _It Can’t Happen Here_ deals specifically and centrally with this premise. And the advent of a dictatorship is a common thread in dystopic science fiction; even the Star Trek time-line includes a period of Earth ruled by dictators. But are there any other non-SF novels that speculate on the rise of an authoritarian American state? And let’s not debate here whether that has already happened IRL, or is happening now–that’s what GD is for. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/2 "2004-10-04T23:51:39Z")
Not sure if you would consider it sci-fi (as it oftentimes put under its umbrella) but Harry Turtledove’s _American Empire_ trilogy is about the rise of an autocrat in the Confederate States of America after its Great War (WW I). To fully appreciate the series though, you’ll need to read _How Few Remain_ and _The Great War_ trilogy that precedes it though. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/3 "2004-10-04T23:56:29Z")
I assume you’re leaving aside the various works where the United States is under the power of a foreign dictatorship like the Nazis, the Soviets, or the Martians? Robert Heinlein wrote a novel (can’t think of the name) where the US was taken over by a fundamentalist Christian dictator. Harry Turtledove has written a series of novels where the Confederates remained independent. He’s now up to the 1940’s and the South is being run by a dictatorship that’s basically the equivalent of the Nazis. Brendan DuBois (sp?) wrote _Resurrection Day_ where the Cuban Missile Crisis led to a nuclear war. The Soviet Union was wiped out and the US is being run by martial law since Washington was nuked. ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/4 "2004-10-05T00:01:06Z")
Well, [Philip Roth](http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/roth/)’s brand new novel, [_The Plot Against America_](http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=696111), has that theme. Check your local paper; it’s sure to be reviewed soon, if it hasn’t been already. It made the cover of the New York Times Book Review yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/5 "2004-10-05T00:19:11Z")
The Heinlein short story (sort of novella, really) is called ‘If This Goes On…’ and yes, it postulates a United States under a theocracy of ‘The Prophet’. It’s bad. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/6 "2004-10-05T00:27:44Z")
Margaret Atwood’s _The Handmaid’s Tale_ comes to mind, although the authoritarian government in this case is a theocracy. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/7 "2004-10-05T00:39:26Z")
A novelization was made of the miniseries [Amerika](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/) which sometimes turns up on ebay or other auction sites. The United States is invaded by the USSR. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/8 "2004-10-05T00:44:28Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Harry Turtledove has written a series of novels where the Confederates remained independent. He’s now up to the 1940’s and the South is being run by a dictatorship that’s basically the equivalent of the Nazis. The Freedom Party/Nazi connection isn’t, BTW, anything even resembling subtle. The covers of the American Empire books show the Confederate battleflag twisted into a swastika (an image, thankfully never actually used in the books), for instance. Interestingly, a minor character who could only be Hitler showed up in the middle of the Great War books. I’m still waiting for mention of ‘that Austrian painter’. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/9 "2004-10-05T00:50:50Z")
_Vandenberg_ by Oliver Lange, 1971. Lange was a New Mexico author, and this story tells about a revolt by New Mexican patriots after the Russians manage to take over the country. If you like Southwestern-American stuff, think _Milagro Beanfield War_, this is an excellent tale, well-crafted by a guy who styled himself after Hemingway. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/10 "2004-10-05T01:45:29Z")
Non SF? Can I fake and offer a couple of books that aren’t _quite_ genre SF? Philip K. Dick’s _The Man in the High Castle_ and Stephen Fry’s _Making History_ both feature an Axis-dominated U.S. Erm, I guess they also rely on alternate timelines as a plot device, and one of them one a Hugo award, but they don’t _feel_ like SF. I’ll shut up now. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/11 "2004-10-05T03:06:44Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > But are there any other non-SF novels that speculate on the rise of an authoritarian American state? By definition, all alternate world scenarios are part of science fiction; some of them just may not be marketed that way. And **Larry Mudd** , what could possibly make _The Man in the High Castle_ non-genre sf? Or are you one of those people who say that if it’s good it can’t be science fiction? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/12 "2004-10-05T03:39:13Z")
_1984_ surely counts, as the (then-futuristicky) nation of Oceania comprises of the Americas, Great Britain (and Ireland, presumably), Australia and parts of Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/13 "2004-10-05T04:17:53Z")
There’s a book called [_Back in the USSA_](http://books.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n2/n14907.htm?authorid=2131) which has the US turning Communist in 1917 (I think an early stock market crash was behind it.), and Russia stayed “white.” The American Stalin-analogue was “Chairman Al”…Al Capone. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/14 "2004-10-05T12:20:59Z")
The 1933 film _Gabriel Over The White House_ was based on a novel by **T.W.Tweed**. This is a short piece describing the events in the film: [http://www.san.beck.org/MM/1933/GabrielOverWhiteHouse.html](http://www.san.beck.org/MM/1933/GabrielOverWhiteHouse.html) I don’t know how closely it sticks to the story in the book which I don’t think is in print just now, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/15 "2004-10-05T13:37:05Z")
It’s not exactly historical fiction, but Stephen King’s book **The Long Walk** (under the name Richard Bachman) takes place in a future America that hints of a dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/16 "2004-10-05T13:57:04Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > By definition, all alternate world scenarios are part of science fiction; some of them just may not be marketed that way. I’m not sure I agree with this. I read a speculative novel set in 1964 in which Germany had won WWII, and was preparing for a state visit from President Kennedy–that’s Joseph P, not John F.! And it was strictly a story of characters behaving within this alternative history. There was nothing about it that I would call science fiction. And there’s no way you could call _It Can’t Happen Here_ science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/17 "2004-10-05T18:01:53Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > By definition, all alternate world scenarios are part of science fiction; some of them just may not be marketed that way. And then… > [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’m not sure I agree with this. I read a speculative novel set in 1964 in which Germany had won WWII, and was preparing for a state visit from President Kennedy–that’s Joseph P, not John F.! And it was strictly a story of characters behaving within this alternative history. There was nothing about it that I would call science fiction. And there’s no way you could call _It Can’t Happen Here_ science fiction. This is a “definition of science fiction” conflict, and so cannot be answered definitively. But it looks like your definition of science fiction has, lurking somewhere in the hinterlands, a caveat that such stories cannot be about “characters.” I’m not sure what you’d say that science fiction stories must be about, but _my_ definition absolutely includes stories of character. (Sturgeon’s “The Man Who Lost the Sea,” for example, is one of my all-time favorite stories and is purely a character piece.) I’d say that, if a story’s setting is fantastic in some way (alternate past, different present or postulated future), then that story is somewhere in the realm of speculative fiction. The specific type of setting – a secondary world where magic works, for example, or a hollowed-out asteroid in the near future – further defines what _kind_ of speculative fiction that story is. A story can, of course, be more than one thing – you can have a romance western SF tale set among the DNA-altered-cow ranchers of Mars, if you want – and thus being one thing does not necessarily preclude a story from being something else. But a story set in an alternate history _is_ science fictional because of its setting, no matter what else it might be. It might not be part of the modern commercial publishing genre of “science fiction” and it might not have a little rocketship on its spine in the library, but that’s not the same thing as “not being science fiction.” By the way, I think the novel you read is **Fatherland** by Robert Harris. It was not published as science fiction, but it is an alternate history novel, and so is at least a cousin of SF. Anyone interested in alternate history would have fun checking out Uchronia, the bibliography and reference guide to the field. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/18 "2004-10-06T03:27:21Z")
> [@Agrippina](#): > > It’s not exactly historical fiction, but Stephen King’s book **The Long Walk** (under the name Richard Bachman) takes place in a future America that hints of a dictatorship. As does the Bachman novel _The Running Man_. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/19 "2004-10-06T14:37:15Z")
Taylor Caldwell’s THE DEVILS ADVOCATE(S?) and Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED may qualify here. The Heinlein Fundy-Dictatorship story was expanded into a novel titled REVOLT IN 2100. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571/20 "2004-10-06T16:37:07Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’m not sure I agree with this. I read a speculative novel set in 1964 in which Germany had won WWII, and was preparing for a state visit from President Kennedy–that’s Joseph P, not John F.! And it was strictly a story of characters behaving within this alternative history. There was nothing about it that I would call science fiction. And there’s no way you could call _It Can’t Happen Here_ science fiction. Before we talk alternate history we have to start with the real thing. The shift from purely mythic tales to a more realistic fiction, what the profs call mimetic fiction, was a long and gradual process. For most of history, however, everything that was not obviously nonfiction was of a type. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was not put into a separate genre from Jane Austen’s works. Still, people understood that fiction comprised a long continuum of types of stories. The combination of the industrial revolution transforming society and the intellectual revolution that grew out of Darwin led to a notion for the first time that the future might be qualitatively different from the past, and not just more of the same. When Verne and Wells and others started producing fiction that emphasized these changes, the name given was scientific romance, where romance had the older definition of “A long fictitious tale of heroes and extraordinary or mysterious events, usually set in a distant time or place.” The rise of pulp magazines led to a splintering of fictional types and the creation of genre as we know it today. Hugo Gernsback tried coining “scientifiction” for the work he was publishing but everybody hated the term, and “science fiction” soon became the standard term. While the term stuck like glue, it had some obvious problems. For one thing, some of the pulp stories weren’t about spaceships at all, but about monsters and demons and weird tales. These descendants of fairy tales became known as the fantasy genre. Did science fiction include fantasy? Some people argued that fantasy was the larger term and that science fiction was just a special case inside of it. (Some people argued that all fiction, mimetic or otherwise, was just a special case inside of fantasy, but that way lies madness.) And people kept publishing what appeared to be science fiction outside the pulps, some even in real novels by major publishers. Was science fiction a literary term or a mere marketing category? In the 1950s, as noted a writer as Kingsley Amis proclaimed Frederik Pohl to the be the greatest writer of science fiction. Because of his spaceships? No, because of his satires of consumerism. Shimmer, it’s a dessert topping and a floor cleaner. So with science fiction. It’s a marketing category recognizable by the space scenes on its covers. It’s a literary understanding that encompasses all alternative forms of looking at reality. Philip Roth, in an essay in the New York Times Book Review, stated that he could find no “literary models” for his alternate history of Lindbergh becoming president. This is the first definition of science fiction taken to a point of ultimate insult. **G.B.H. Hornswoggler** , in his excellent post, mentions the labor of love that is [uchronia.net](http://uchronia.net), on which you can find 1600 alternate history titles posted in chronological order. You can also find the history of the Sidewise Award (named for Murray Leinster’s seminal 1934 tale of alternate realities, “Sidewise in Time”). On the short list for the 2003 awards was [A Disturbance of Fate, by Mitchell J. Freedman](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1931643229/ref=ase_sidewiseawardsfo/104-5217359-6957507?v=glance&s=books), in which Robert Kennedy survives to become president. Roth may be more literary a writer than Freedman - how many writers in the entire world is this not true for - but to say that no models exist is an absurdity. Any statement that because a novel involves characters instead of spaceships it cannot be science fiction can only be a variation of the poisonous “if it’s good it’s not science fiction”, a position I reject out of hand. All alternate history is subsumed inside the literary discipline that is science fiction, even if it is not written or marketed or intended as science fiction. As Walt Whitman said, Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. Multitudes are the very heart and being of science fiction. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-historical-novels-postulating-dictatorship-in-the-usa/267571.md?page=2)