The Plot Against America
The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels. The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the care with which his confusion and terror are rendered makes the novel as much about the mysteries of growing up as about American politics. Roth based his novel on the isolationist ideas espoused by Lindbergh in real life as a spokesman for the America First Committee, and on his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey. The novel received praise for the realism of its world and its treatment of topics such as antisemitism, trauma, and the perception of history. The novel depicts the Weequahic section of Newark which includes Weequahic High School from which Roth graduated. In 2005, the novel won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction given by the Society of American Historians. It won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and came in 11th for the 2005 Locus Awards.
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What Hacker News says
- I recently, by accident, read two books that worked really well together:
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Bill Bryson book is, I think, a work of subtle genius - he makes stuff that I would normally have no interest in absolutely fascinating (e.g. baseball).
It was purely accidental that I read these in the order I did and so close together - but the extensive descriptions of the adventures of Lindbergh and other aviators did provide a great background for the Roth novel.
- His book "Plot Against America" helped to change my worldview. It was the first time I thought about the fact that it was not a foregone conclusion that America is a country that hadn't fallen to fascism in the mid 20th century, and led to me start reading history with a more critical eye. After that I realized just how much history is comprised of shades of grey rather than right and wrong.
- I've read only 3 1/2 of his books: Operation Shylock, Plot against America, Portnoys complaint: and part of American Pastoral -- which I had trouble getting through. I wonder if others found it too dense?
Otherwise, the above 3 books are really great!
- > The problem is that in most cases businesses can afford you, but they choose to be "unable to".
Exactly, some businesses even do stuff like this:
> https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4cfau7?rsrc=cshare&sm...
> How do the wealthy get so wealthy? Mostly by some form of cheating. One way that's relevant to one current case is depicted in Philip Roth's 2004 novel 'The Plot Against America':
> "Every subcontractor when he comes into the office on Friday to collect money for the lumber, the glass, the brick, Abe says, 'Look, we're out of money, this is the best I can do,' and he pays them a half, a third -- if he can get away with it, a quarter -- and these people need the money to survive, but this is the method that Abe learned from his father. He's doing so much building that he gets away with it..."
