The Iron Heel

The Iron Heel is a dystopian and political novel in the form of science fiction by the American writer Jack London, published in 1908. Chan Koonchung describes a world where American democracy degenerates into an oligarchic state very similar to a fascist one. He sees it as a warning to London’s contemporaries in the early decades of the 20th century, and as a tradition worth remembering when thinking about China today.