The Iron Heel

The Iron Heel is a dystopian[1] novel by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. Generally considered to be "the earliest of the modern dystopian" fiction,[2] it chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably[according to whom?] the novel in which Jack London's socialist views are most explicitly on display. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes.[citation needed] The book is unusual among London's writings (and in the literature of the time in general) in being a first-person narrative of a woman protagonist written by a man. Much of the narrative is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, including events in San Francisco and Sonoma County.