Iron Heel

Book Description

Jack London (1876-1916), at his peak, was the highest paid and the most popular of all living writers. Because of financial difficulties, he was largely self educated past grammar school. A large part of his knowledge was obtained from the Oakland Public Library.

London draws heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike during the Gold Rush and at various times was an oyster pirate, a seaman, a sealer, and a hobo.

His first work was published in 1898. From there he went on to write such American classics as "Call of the Wild", "Sea Wolf", and "White Fang". Quiet Vision has published more than 20 of his works and is working to publish all his fiction.

Download Description

Written in 1908, this visionary novel about class struggle anticipates the political upheavals of the thirties and beyond.

Customer Reviews:

The Iron Heel Vs. The Iron Heart.......2006-09-20

The book has a simple idea behind it. The story is treated like a manuscript written by Avis Everhard, the wife to Ernest Everhard the American Revolutionary. Written in the early 20th Century is if found seven centuries later.
Jack London's insight in the workings of how those who have power keep it is amazing. The street fighting, the bombings, the use of military force, all happened in one form or another in the years following the book's publication in 1907. Before Facism, before thw world wars, he sees a class struggle for control of our machine civilization (a term other authors will pick up) and his vision is very, very crisp.
I find the fact that the American Oligarchy had a jail in Cuba kind of ironic. And that one of their great wonder cities, the one called Asgard, was completed in 1984 to be kind of funny in a way.
But Jack's picture of a socialist revolt and maybe future society is not very pleasing to the eye. As the conflict grows both sides become ruthless, heartless, clones of each other. They kill, bomb, spy and use people. They both use the lower class, those poor folks in the abyss, the very ones the socialists are trying to save.
In the fighting in Chicago Avis sometimes can't tell the difference between those comardes fighting on her side and the soldiers fighting for the government. When she sights a wounded man, a man from the bottom of the class system, a beast so low that he knows he will recieve no help from anybody, she does not even OFFER to help. Many of the female socialists, bomb tossing terrorists, refuse to have children because it would take them away from fighting for the cause. In other words having a family gets in the way of killing people. No wonder it took them three centuries to overthrow the Iron Heel.
The fact is both sides want the same thing - to rule the planet. By the end of the book I was not really cheering on either group. Also much of the book, when there isn't any action, is one large boring lecture.
In the end it was worth reading because of my interest in dystopia fiction but that is it.

Red in tooth and claw.......2005-12-09

London is best known for his outdoorsman stories, survival and death in the uncaring brutality of the wild. It may be surprising, if only for a moment, that he brought the same sensibility to this story of social change.

The story begins in London's actual "here-and-now," the US in 1907. It centers on a firebrand Socialist named Ernest Everhard (yes, that's really his name), as seen through the adoring eyes of the woman who eventually marries him. The early part of the story describes his harangues about the "scientific" superiority of socialism, supposedly founded in the facts of biology, and driven with the mechanistic inevitability of gravity.

Starting with some Kafka-esque legal attacks on Our Hero and his family, the story gradually escalates into open urban warfare. Attacker and defender alike gun each other down by the thousands. As the book ends, Chicago has been bombed to rubble, and the rubble burned. Some far-future commentator, the one who's been adding "historical" footnotes throughout, describes this as the first major battle in a civil war that runs on for centuries. He hints that those centuries will end in a flowering of wealth, art, and happiness under the benevolence of true Socialism (i.e., not that nasty Russian thing).

The rhetoric of "inevitability" sounds stale, now that so much of Eastern Europe has had its gentle revolution. The armed heroics of the firebrand look more like nihilist terrorism. "The People," in whose name the bombings and gunfire are launched, suffer as much from their self-styled saviors as from the evil stewards of the status quo.

It's a fair adventure story, set against a burning skyline, but I just can't see it as the triumph that London wants me to.

//wiredweird

The Iron Heel of the Plutocracy........2005-09-26

"This then is our answer . . . We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces." - Mr. Wickson from _The Iron Heel_

_The Iron Heel_ by American writer Jack London, first written in 1908, and republished by Lawrence Hill Books, is a profoundly philosophical work in the form of fiction advocating the alternative of radical socialism and revolution to the capitalist system. Jack London was a rugged adventurer and a novelist who was born into extreme poverty and became an idealistic proponent of socialism. London was influenced philosophically by such profound thinkers as Charles Darwin (whose concept of the "survival of the fittest" plays such a prevalent role in many of his stories as the "law of tooth and claw"), Herbert Spencer (social Darwinist philosopher), Friedrich Nietzsche (whose superman ideal plays a prominent role among London's ultra-masculine protagonists), and Karl Marx (whose economic theories and belief in the inevitability of proletarian revolution underlay many of London's socialist beliefs). Born into poverty, London had seen first hand the harmful effects of the plutocracy/oligarchy of elite capitalists on the poor and working class, and in this novel he puts the words of an indictment of the capitalist class into the mouth of his working class hero as having mismanaged society. London argues that there is no reason for anyone to be starving within society given the increased production capabilities of the modern age as compared with those of the stone age.

_The Iron Heel_ is supposedly a document left by one Avis Everhard, a female revolutionist in the earlier half of the twentieth century, extolling the heroism of her working class philosopher-socialist husband Ernest Everhard who fought the plutocracy. This document supposedly has been preserved to reflect the era in which the oligarchy took its most oppressive measures against the working class by forming the "Iron Heel" to crush the working class and the middle class together. However, according to the story the proletariat revolution eventually triumphed bringing about a new era in subsequent centuries. London believed this triumph was inevitable given the theories of Karl Marx which Ernest expounds upon within the story.

_The Iron Heel_ begins at the home of John Cunningham, Avis Everhard's father, where a group of Christian churchmen have met to discuss the problems of the working class. John Cunningham was a physicist, who has taken a particular interest in philosophy and economics. As part of their discussion, Ernest Everhard is invited to represent the working class. London's description of the thrust and parry of verbal sparing is very effective. Ernest effectively defeats in argument all the men and shows them the philosophy of the working class. Later one of the Christian churchmen, Bishop Morehouse, will come to embrace socialism himself, but will be dismissed as "overworked" and "insane" by the ruling oligarchy. Avis Everhard, who eventually falls in love with and marries Ernest, described as a Nietzschean "blond beast" - an ultra-masculine heroic muscle man from the working class, and her father will also come to embrace socialism. Ernest eventually must confront the oligarchs in their natural environment. London's description of this confrontation at an elite club resembles his descriptions of dog fights from some of his other stories and is very effective. Ernest also confronts a group of middle class businessmen who propose to "bust the trusts" and who Ernest dismisses as "machine breakers". Eventually the oligarchy comes to make war against labor through the formation of the "Iron Heel". London describes the militia of the oligarchy as similar to the Black Hundreds of Russia who actively opposed the revolution. The story traces the development of the opposition and the working class revolt as they seek to fight against the capitalist oppressors.

London's socialism is highly idiosyncratic. On the one hand, he advocates collectivism, and yet his chief protagonists are all powerful individualists. This conflict between the brute Darwinistic struggle for survival and his socialistic ideals is seen in all of his stories. While London's socialism is certainly overly idealistic, he could not have foreseen the terrors that developed within the Soviet experiment. One could just as well imagine the lone right wing hero going up against the left wing oligarchy and the media in today's world. It is certainly possible to imagine that had London lived longer he would have come to reject this naïve sort of socialism and may have become a powerful force for the reaction. Some have also suggested that _The Iron Heel_ is highly prophetic in that it foretells the creation of fascism in which an alliance between the labor castes and the capitalists developed. Like all London's stories though, _The Iron Heel_ is expertly crafted with superb imagery and London's social conscience is revealed throughout.

Everhard or London: which was the rapid socialist here?.......2003-11-23

I did enjoy the book myself though it dragged in many parts and in some parts confusing, especially in the chapter known as "Mechanics of a Dream" which was a troulbing chapter. The book was a rapid apporach on socialism and the evantually downfall of captialism which i agree with, with captailsim being the downfall of everything.I would recommend this book to many people who have any views or intrest on communist or socialist history and plus its a great novel.

Jack London's prophetic 1908 dystopian novel.......2003-10-26

In 1905 the troops of the Tsar crushed the Russian revolution of 1905. Although the uprising did force Nicholas II to establish a constitution and a parliament, the Russian revolution of 1917 would change the face of the world. However, the uprising also had the interesting effect of inspiring two of the more interesting utopian novels of the early 20th century. One was "Red Star," the socialist utopia on Mars created by the Russian writer Alexander Bogdanov, a Bolshevik and intimate of Lenin. The other was "The Iron Heel," by Jack London, the American author best known for "The Call of the Wild." Whereas Bogdanov forsees the ultimate victory of the socialist and scientific-technical revolutions, London predicts global revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces ending up in an apocalyptic battle betwen the impoverished workers and the privileged minorities. Consequently, the two authors share a common socialist perspective, although Bogdanov writes a utopian novel and London creates a dystopia.

"The Iron Heel" was written in 1908 and remains one of the more prophetic novels of the 20th century. His track record with regards to a national secret police agency, the rise of Fascism, the creation of attractive suburbs for the middle class while the unemployed and menials live in "ghettoes," is markedly better than that of Edward Belleamy's "Looking Backward," Aldoux Huxley's "Brave New World," or George Orwell's "1984," the novels that are usually lauded and judged by their prescience in terms of utopian literature.

The novel presents the story of the American revolutionary Earnest Everhard, as told by his wife Avis, who is actually the more effective revolutionary leader. London tells how the manuscript was unknown for seven centuries, to be discovered long after the final triumph of socialist democracy in the yar 419 B.O.M. Avis Everhard describes the struggles of the working masses against the oligarchy, and how they were ruthlessly suppressed, especially in the Chicago Commune that is the main setting for the action. There is a strong current of violence, with Black Hundreds wrecking the socialist presses,a bomb exploding in the House of Representatives, and revolutionaries being hunted down by the military arm of the government known as the Iron Heel. The Everhard Manuscript breaks off in the middle of a sentence, a footnote explaining that history does not know if the author escaped or was captured.

The story is somewhat atypical for London in that it does not represent the white supremacist and male dominant vision of the world we usually find in his novels. London's message is the blatant warning that if you allow the Revolution to be defeated, then the ruling class will "grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces." Ultimately "The Iron Heel" is a novel whose importance clearly outstrips its literary quality. The problem is that with the end of World War II and the defeat (essentially) of Fascism that London's novel was no longer of interest as the world was confronted with a new set of problems. Yet, London's dytopian novel is one of the works in that genre that deserves to be reconsidered more often.

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The iron heel of oligarchy

Gripping in its Suspense and Excellent Dialogue

The Iron Heel (Penguin Classics)
Jack London , and Jonathan Auerbach
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0143039717

Book Description

Part science fiction, part dystopian fantasy, part radical socialist tract, Jack London's The Iron Heel offers a grim depiction of warfare between the classes in America and around the globe. Originally published nearly a hundred years ago, it anticipated many features of the past century, including the rise of fascism, the emergence of domestic terrorism, and the growth of centralized government surveillance and authority. What begins as a war of words ends in scenes of harrowing violence as the state oligarchy, known as “the Iron Heel,” moves to crush all opposition to its power. BACKCOVER: “A truer prophecy of the future than either Brave New World or The Shape of Things to Come.”
—George Orwell

“Still more astonishing is the genuinely prophetic vision of the methods by which the Iron Heel will sustain its domination over crushed mankind.”
—Leon Trotsky

Customer Reviews:

The iron heel of oligarchy.......2006-11-11

Jack London's story paints the dark days of pure capitalism where `children, six and seven years of age, working every night at twelve hours shift', where the people of the abyss live like beasts in great squalid labor-ghettos and where `my father lied, stole and did all sorts of dishonorable things to put bread in my mouth.'
In pure Marxist style, a tiny Plutocracy (seven powerful groups) has taken hold of all powers in the US. It has at its beck and call the police, the army, the courts, the schools and private militias. The press became `suppressage'. Its policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established and to mould public opinion.
The Church is also their mouthpiece: `the command to the Church was `Feed my lambs', but out of the dividends magnificent churches are built where your kind preaches pleasant platitudes to the sleek, full-bellied recipients of those dividends.' When one of its ministers speaks out for the poor, he is put in an asylum for being `insane'.
In order to keep control of the proletarians, the Plutocrats force a split in the unions between the strong unions in the monopoly corporations and the rest of weakly organized labor.
Another means of control is terrorism and `agents provocateurs' whose bloody attacks are foisted on the shoulders of their enemies.

The only opposition to the rule of the oligarchs consists of the `Brotherhood of Man', a socialist semi-clandestine organization.
A Marxian capitalistic endgame explodes with a bloody war between the few and the many ...

This forceful revolutionary book is brushed in an idealistic tone, with rather naïve black and white (the good and the bad) colors.
Unfortunately, it is partly still very topical. The struggle between right and left in the US became the global struggle between North and South. Terrorism, control of the media, the influence of education and religion, control of the courts are still red hot topics today.

This book is a real find. Not to be missed.

Gripping in its Suspense and Excellent Dialogue.......2006-09-25

Okay, this book is pro-communist. You have to look beyond that if you are a Roman-style Fascist like myself. What I liked, most especially, is Ernest Everhard's description of the Plutocrats/Oligarchs when they invited him to their social lecture evening. Its absolutely priceless and right on the mark. The same goes with his descriptions of human nature and such. The novel is quite ingenious.

This novel described, in many ways, what we're facing today. Those who are against this illusion we call "democracy" are destroyed and every dirty trick employed. There are plutocrats that are totally circumventing the US Constitution and an rich elite that act and are above the law in most respects. Take London's novel and apply it today and it is eerily similiar. London also had gotten it right in another respect - with soul sucking, Mammon loving, reptiles we see today as the elites you're not going to change squat through the voting "system".

Finally, this is a novel, but its more than that. It is a window to the future. Not exactly how London envisioned it but close enough. Think on that next time you cast your vote for tweedle dee or tweedle dum. Or when they send your boys over to a foreign land to secure the plutocrats' wealth. Or when your property taxes keep on rising as with your personal income taxes.

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The Pre-Orwellian Jack London

The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: Mondial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1595690379

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The Pre-Orwellian Jack London.......2007-02-16

The Iron Heel is interesting as an example of a "dystopian" novel which anticipates and influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Jack London's (1876-1916) socialist politics are explicitly on display here. Its description of the capitalist class forming an organised, totalitarian, violent oligarchy to crush the working-class forewarned in some detail the Fascist dictatorships of Europe. Given it was written in 1908, this prediction was somewhat uncanny, as Trotsky noted while commenting on the book in the 30s.

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The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: Echo Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1406800627

Book Description

A story of world revolution set in early 20th century America.

Jack London 2 - The Iron Heel and other stories (Classic Science Fiction & Fantasy)

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Jack London 2 - The Iron Heel and other stories (Classic Science Fiction & Fantasy)
Jack London
Manufacturer: Leonaur Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1846770114

Book Description

Renowned as a writer of classic adventure stories such as The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London also had a parallel career as a writer of science fiction and fantasy. In Leonaur's three volume, The Collected Science Fiction & Fantasy of Jack London, his SF and fantasy novels and shorter works are brought together for the first time. In the early twentieth century the USA diverged from the path of the history we know. Viewed from 800 years in the future, through the pages of an ancient manuscript, we learn that huge business conglomerates became all powerful, and ordinary people little more than slaves - the property of a despotic regime that controlled their lives. Those savage and inhuman times are vividly depicted in The Iron Heel, one of Jack London's finest novels. Also in this volume are five shorter works that demonstrate both the scope of London's imagination and his concern for the future of our world.

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The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Product Description

Green decorated/illustreated EP's. Plain gree blind stamped covers with gold gilt spine text.

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Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: MACMILLAN COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OJYQX4

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The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: IndyPublish.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1404309365

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The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: Aegypan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1603129820

Book Description

When you think of Jack London, you probably think of works like Call of the Wild -- yes, there's something fantastic about the work, but in the end it's not something you'd want to shelve with the SF or the Fantasy. It's conservative, and thoughtful, and has a very real understanding of the world.

This is something different. Oh, it's got London's understanding, but it was written before he changed his politics -- The Iron Heel gives us a grim, SFnal, and socialist vision of the world endlessly at war -- Vietnam-style war, at that. Fascinating, thoughtful, and exciting stuff from a real master.

"A truer prophecy of the future than either Brave New World or The Shape of Things to Come." -- George Orwell

"Still more astonishing is the genuinely prophetic vision of the methods by which the Iron Heel will sustain its domination over crushed mankind." -- Leon Trotsky

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The Iron Heel
Jack London
Manufacturer: Mills and Boon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NRQS60

Book Description

After the death of wise old Mangan, the Regent of Esphania, many of the regent's skills and qualities seem to have been transferred to his beautiful and intelligent cat, Niffy, who at once attaches herself to the new ruler, Prince Jamas. When the king of a neighboring kingdom seems keen to forge an alliance with Jamas by allowing the prince to marry his niece, the real danger is Yasmin, the wicked queen wife, who poisons everyone she dislikes or suspects of interfering with her ambitions. Niffy must guide Jamas through a thicket of difficulties to save the Prince Jamas from a horrible fate!

Customer Reviews:

early Anne.......2007-10-05

I liked this book. It was imaginative and kept my interest. I could never figure out if it was a historical setting or a futuristic setting. I finally decided that was one of the things I liked about it.

The Cat.......2007-09-13

The cat has some significant in the story but it takes a couple of readings of the book to actually find out the real significant of the cat. I would give my eye teeth for a cat like her. I wish Ms McCaffrey would write a sequal to this.

If you don't buy the book, hire from a library or borrow from a friend - a definite must read.

Enjoyable quick read.......2007-09-02

This is a long fairy tale or a fantasy novella. I've always enjoyed Anne McCaffrey's style and find most of her books easy to read and hard to put down, so short can be good (gets me back to the things I should be doing faster). Young adults are probably the intended audience, the innuendo may exclude children and possibly tweens (parent's call really). I suspect kids who like the warrior cat series might like this book. I enjoyed reading it, which is the point when I buy fiction novels, after all. The child in me just can't resist good versus evil fairy tales with happily-ever-after endings. And a cat as one of the good guys makes the animal lover in me smile.

There were a couple unresolved issues--namely the baby and Fanina--but then life can't always be neat with all the loose ends tied up, even in a fantasy world. More information on what a magnificat is would be nice, but working it in would probably have been too contrived. Salinah's behavior at the end seemed out of character, but maybe not. The point may be that outwardly strong, self-sufficient folks who seem least likely to ever need help/emotional support may actually be the most likely to need it when traumatized because they don't have the confidantes and other support in place to help them deal with it.

Worth reading........2007-08-08

I have one rule when it comes to Anne McCaffery; if she wrote it buy it. This book was over priced ($20 something - I think), even considering the author, but I bought it any way. Apparently I got a deal or Amazon has made a major typo ($299), because I checked the prices before writing this. This book is well worth the read, I liked it, but the original price was too high for what you got. It is a short story that I found very interesting, but regardless of the author I paid too much.

Note: My rating of 3 is based on who wrote it and compared to other authors that makes it a 5.

A Quick Read.......2007-07-09

The story was not as well developed as other McCaffrey works, but it was a fun book that was a quick and easy read. Good for those looking for a nice break from reality, but not for those who want depth in their characters and the world they live in. It was easy to put down and pick back up again as time allowed.

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No One Noticed the Cat
Anne McCaffrey
Manufacturer: Wildside Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NZ74JM

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No One Noticed The Cat
Anne McCaffrey
Manufacturer: Wildside Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NV93NG

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No One Noticed the Cat
Anne McCaffrey
Manufacturer: ROC Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NW6WNE

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