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.