The Fall of a Nation

by Thomas Dixon Jr.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Classics

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

Thomas Frederick Dixon Jr. was a Southern Baptist minister, playwright, lecturer, North Carolina state legislator, lawyer, and author.

(wikipedia)

Reviews

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rare work of early science fiction from the author of "The Klansman" aka "Birth of a Nation."

A coalition of suffragettes and pacifists gets America to sit out World War One. As a result, the war in Europe grinds to a stalemate, and a truce is declared.

A Parliament of Nations is formed to settle future international conflicts peacefully...but it's actually a feint to throw America off guard so that the formerly enemy nations of Europe can pool their armies for an invasion.

This was written circa 1915, before America did in fact join the fighting. It's especially interesting to compare the Parliament of Nstions idea with the actual League of Nations.

The florid, old-fashioned writing style of Mr. Dixon may turn off some readers, but it has very little of his infamous racism. More problematic for many is likely to be the early 20th Century sexism. Thankfully, this does not extend to making the women irrelevant to the successful counterinvasion.

For more science fiction reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/science-fict...

[Da1tonthegreat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fall of a Nation is probably the strangest novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Billed as sequel to The Birth of a Nation (not a Dixon novel but the film adaption of his book The Clansman), it has no plot connection to it. Instead, he makes a foray into speculative fiction, wherein Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany invades the United States via an army of sleeper agents and (briefly) conquers the country. Dixon was making an argument in favor of a strong national defense (though NOT, it should be noted, of intervention in the Great War then tearing Europe apart).

The story is decent enough, and contains Dixon's typical Southern conservative social commentary (here taking aim at women's suffrage and pacifism, both of which enable America's defeat by the invaders). Unfortunately he falls into popular stereotyping and depicts the Germans as barbarous and uncivilized – baseless slander that was made against Germany regarding their conduct against not only the Belgians in this war but the Jews in the next, with disastrous consequences for the western world.

[George Lysy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was an absolute slog. At first I found it somewhat fun. It indeed was very readable, in terms of writing quality, style, readability, believability and cheesiness. The first half is a protracted series of debates between the main character, Vassar, an American senator and Polish immigrant advocating for preparedness against a potential invasion from Europe, and Virginia Holland, the president of the women's rights movement, which intersects with the peace union (led by the villain, Waldron), who naturally opposes Vassar's military preparedness bill.
In a typical Victorian invasion narrative, you can guess which one will be vindicated by the end.
Sadly, this book is very crude and not even very cunning propaganda. The other side's arguments never feel like something real people would say, and Vassar even talks over people half the time because all they have to do is interject with strawman platitudes. Nevertheless, Vassar and Virginia Holland fall in love. Though, in the manner of chauvinist literature, women's rights has blinded women and Virginia can't tell she's even in love with Vassar, until she realizes that he is right, post-invasion of America. The book, despite being written by the Clansman author Thomas W. Dixon, actually has a positive view of immigrants, seeing them as the most patriotic Americans and the backbone of America. They are represented with a family of Italians so stereotypical they may as well own a pizza shop and carry the surname of Pastalini, who act both as comic relief and pathos through the story, as the child, inspired by the possibility of someday becoming president, dies at the hands of the invaders while fighting for his country, and his mother pins to her jacket the blood-stained american flag he carried while he he died during the victory parade at the end. There is exactly one black character, a servant named Peter; but otherwise, despite the huge number of black Americans living as citizens after the civil war, and despite writing the book that would be adapted as Birth of a Nation, he is strangely quiet on their existence. The book also has some slightly, potentially, feminist leanings when near the end the all-female fighting brigade helps retake America from within the invading Germans's lines, (proving Vassar's assertion that women can't and shouldn't fight to be wrong, though of course he never admits it), though it's generally pretty misogynistic otherwise. The invasion happens at the hands of Waldron, who turns out to be an agent of the monarchy Germany, recently recovered from the recent world war. (The book takes place a century after WWI, in which the United States never fought.) One day, a legion of brown-coated soldiers pop out of their holes outside New York City (now the capital) and take the whole country by force. They even claim the entire country's newspaper and media. He also takes 200 prisoners and threatens to kill them if he faces any resistance, which is never addressed again. This is about halfway through the book, by the way. The rest is typical invasion narrative faire, including the United State's ill defense and constant defeat after defeat, until at the very end, in the final seven pages, it is explained that 2 years later, Vassar and Virginia Holland reorganize their forces and take back America with a coup, and things end pretty unambiguously happy. So, really, the story is not the Fall of a Nation, except for the 2-year interval of German occupation. There is exactly one cool moment near the end where a battle is happening, and Waldron, clutching Virginia Holland (who pretended to love him but is now exposed) and pointing a gun at her head, when Angela (Older daughter in the Italian family) rides up on horseback and shoots Waldron in the head just in time, and even circles around to shoot him again. This moment is even illustrated. But otherwise, the book was extremely shallow and dumb pro-preparedness propaganda mixed with chauvinism, with action not good enough to back it up. As for it being sci-fi, there is some futuristic stuff mentioned, including some futuristic technology like what I think are flying soldiers. I would not want to re-read this one.