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Why isn’t “It Can’t Happen Here” By Sinclair Lewis not as well known as other Dystopian Fiction novels? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I’m a massive fan of Dystopian Fiction and have read several classics in the genre, but I recently heard about “It Can’t Happen Here” and it sounded exactly like a novel I’ve always wanted to read, but never knew it existed. After having read a bit of it so far, and am curious how this book is not more prominent in this country especially in todays political culture? It hosts a lot of political opinions that are eerily similar to a lot of opinions today so I would think it would’ve been more well known.

Everyone talks about Brave New World and Orwells works, but why am I now just hearing about Lewis’ novel?

Seems like it’s something that should be mandatory reading in every American high school.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

As someone not from the US I would say one of the reasons Everyone talks about Brave New World and Orwells works are because, while they are set in a future US and UK the setting is not that relevant and could be "Any western democracy at some time in the future" while “It Can’t Happen Here” is very much set in the USA and at a certain time.

Why it is not more popular in the USA?

My guess is that during the cold war, anything that specific about fascism in the USA would have not been allowed to be widely used in US schools.