The Column

Friday, September 25, 2009

'It Can't Happen Here' more relevant, though harder to find

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Back in the 1930s, while the economy sat in the tank and a few bad-news dictators left little jackboot prints all over the globe, folks were saying we were still reasonably safe in the USA. That it couldn't happen here.

Novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel that said, oh yes it can. And "It Can't Happen Here" created something of a stir. I discovered the book quite a few years ago, and am rereading it now, as if I need something to make me all paranoid about things.

I understand he based the lead character (Buzz Windrip) on Huey Long, the populist politician who ruled Louisiana any way he wanted.

I'm big on history, mostly because it gives a been-there view of the future.

I downloaded it some months ago from the U.S. Project Gutenberg site. I looked at that site again today, and while quite a few other Lewis books are available for download, this one is not. What's up with that?

I did find it at the Australian Project Gutenberg site. It'll load into your Web browser, and you can save it from there as an .html or .txt document. Or you can read it or download it from the Adelaide site, also from Australia. Get 'em while they're hot, folks!

Or, you can get the actual book from here.

Grab it and read it. And if you're a thinking person, it should scare the pants off of you.

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