The Iron Heel

2020 Reprint of the 1907 Edition. The Iron Heel is generally considered to be an early example of the modern dystopian fiction genre, The novel chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. Jack London's socialist views are explicitly on display in this work. The Iron Heel, with its panoramic scenes of urban warfare in Chicago, envisions the United States taken over by fascists who perpetuate their regime for three hundred years. It constitutes London's warning to his fellow socialists that mere persuasion is insufficient to combat a system that ultimately relies on force. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and 1970s, the novel stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes. The book is unusual among London's writings (and in the literature of the time in general) in being a first-person narrative of a woman protagonist written by a man. Much of the narrative is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, including events in San Francisco and Sonoma County.