It Can't Happen Here & Arrowsmith

It Can't Happen Here is a dystopian political novel. Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius 'Buzz' Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and 'traditional' values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. The novel's plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup's opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion. Arrowsmith is a novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, which won him the Pulitzer Prize ...which Lewis declined. Arrowsmith is an early major novel dealing with the culture of science. It was written in the period after the reforms of medical education flowing from the Flexner Report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1910, which had called on medical schools in the United States to adhere to mainstream science in their teaching and research. The actual story deals with trials and tribulations of Martin Arrowsmith, a brilliant doctor and scientist who wants to conquer the plague virus from spreading. But the price comes at a very heavy cost. A must read!

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.