History Literature / TheIronHeel

The bulk of the novel takes place within a FramingDevice, in the form of a historical text written by one Anthony Meredith, in the far-flung year of 419 BOM (Brotherhood Of Man) - around 2630 or so. The text is an analysis of the recently-discovered "Everhard Manuscript," a lost chronicle of the tumultuous years between 1912 and 1932, when the so-called "Iron Heel" was first consolidating its power. The Iron Heel was a powerful cabal of industrialists that rose to prominence in the early years of the 20th Century, eventually growing so powerful that they managed to take over the government of the United States, squeeze the Middle Class into extinction, and turn the bulk of the population into overworked slaves in all-but-name. In its early days the Iron Heel was opposed by a radical group led by the visionary thinker Ernest Everhard, and later by his wife Avis, the actual author of the Everhard Manuscript. Through the Manuscript we learn how the Iron Heel rose to power, first in the United States and later throughout the world, what measures they took to maintain that power (it ain't pretty), and what Everhard and his allies did to try and resist them. [[spoiler: Thanks to the FramingDevice, however, we readers know from the start that Everhard's rebellion fails, and that the Iron Heel endures for centuries after his death.]]

Well, it turns out Jack London set the stage for dystopian sci-fi, singlehandedly codifying most of the tropes we've now come to recognize as standard for the genre. Informed by the politics of TheGildedAge and by London's personal political views, ''The Iron Heel'' was meant to be something of a cautionary tale, a warning of what could happen if things were allowed to continue as they were. As such the novel can seem somewhat dry and preachy, and frankly, many of the tropes he invented [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny have been done much better since 1908]].