![]() First edition cover
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Author | Harry Turtledove |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | American Empire |
Genre | Alternate history novel |
Publication date
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June 25, 2002 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
Pages | 512 |
ISBN | |
OCLC | 49952193 |
Preceded by | American Empire: Blood and Iron |
Followed by | American Empire: The Victorious Opposition |
American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold is the second book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove. It takes place during the period of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression (specifically from 1924 to March 4, 1934). During this era in Turtledove's Southern Victory Series world, the Confederate States of America, stretching from Sonora to Virginia, is led by Whigs (with the fascist Freedom Party gaining more and more power) while the United States of America (which has been occupying Canada, Newfoundland, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Sandwich Islands) is controlled by Socialists.
The title is derived from the apocalyptic vision appearing in Yeats' poem The Second Coming: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." The events depicted by Turtldove are quite fitting with the tone of that poem.
The new medium of "the wireless" (radio) offers novel ways for politicians to reach the people. Jake Featherston is the first politician to realize its potential, and soon people sitting in their homes can hear his raspy, thundery voice shouting from their radio sets, telling them the "truth" about the Yankees, Whigs, and blacks. Even with this broadened appeal to the masses, the Freedom Party's hopes ebb further with Featherston's defeat at the polls in 1927 against incumbent Whig Burton Mitchel III. The Confederate people are just starting to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity, and the War and black uprisings are coming to be seen as part of the past, despite Featherston and his stalwarts, doing their utmost to keep them alive in the collective memory. Things change when, in early 1929, the world's stock markets crash and financial and economic depression results.