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Description edit
"Political protest literature, written - with a mixture of 'the human touch' and broad humour - by someone who knew precisely why it COULD happen here."
The only one of Sinclair Lewis's later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Doremus Jessup: Add a description of this character.
- Lee Sarason
- Julian Falck
- Emma
- Berzelius Windrip
- Lorinda
- Mary
- Shad Ledue
- David
- Dewey Haik
- Buck Titus
- Walt Trowbridge
- Mrs. Candy
- Karl Pascal
- Dan Wilgus
- John Pollikop
- Emil Staubmeyer
- Francis Tasbrough
- Hitler
- Linda
- Philip
- Dr. Olmsted
- Dr. Macgoblin
- Fowler
- Buzz Windrip
- Henry Veeder
- Beecroft
- Roosevelt
- Mr. Dimick
- Perefixe
- Frank
- R. C. Crowley
Quotes edit
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“He tried to be proud of being a political prisoner. He couldn't. Jail was jail.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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'Is it just possible,' he sighed, 'that the most vigorous and boldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators?
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'More and more, as I think about history,' he pondered, 'I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.'
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'The tyranny of this dictatorship isn't primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It's the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest.
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Every moment everyone felt fear, nameless and omnipresent.
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It was a town of perhaps ten thousand souls, inhabiting about twenty thousand bodies--the proportion of soul-possession may be too high.
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there is only one thing bigger than a very big thing, and that is a thing so very small that it can be seen and understood.
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The authorities abruptly closed some scores of the smaller, more independent colleges
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Probably many of them cared nothing about insults to the Corpo state, but had only the unprejudiced, impersonal pleasure in violence natural to most people.
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He noticed that President Peaseley resembled a dummy made of faded gray flannel of a quality intended for petticoats in an orphan asylum.
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Aside from his dramatic glory, Buzz Windrip was a Professional Common Man.
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Setting & Locations edit
- South America
- Washington
- Canada
- New York
- Vermont
- Fort Beulah
- Mexico
- Trianon
- United States
- Zero Hour
- New England
- Russia
- Germany
- Europe
- Chicago
- Worcester
- France
- New Underground
- Mount Terror
- Moscow
- Boston
- N.u.
- Albany
- Amherst
- California
- Beulah Valley
- White House
- Minnesota
- China
- London
- Montreal
- Italy
- Cuba
- Corpoism
- Paris
- Jerusalem
- Hearst
- Japan
- Effingham Swan
- Georgia
- Burlington
- Heaven
- Long Island
- Great Britain
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
First Sentence edit
The handsome dining room of the Hotel Wessex, with its gilded plaster shields and the mural depicting the Green Mountains, had been reserved for the Ladies' Night Dinner of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 5 of 11 in Publishers Weekly Bestselling Novels in 1936. (authoritative list)
Preceded by Drums Along the Mohawk, and followed by White Banners.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Sinclair Lewis (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Company
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1936
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Company
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1936
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 458
Awards edit
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3523.E94 I5 1936
- Dewey: 813.52
Subjects edit
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Movie Connections edit
- Shadow on the Land (IMDb): A TV movie based on the novel "It Can't Happen Here."
Books with Additional Background Information edit
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