Listen to audio

Stream (help)

Play / Download (help)

NEW!64Kbps MP3 ZIP

Resources

Jack LondonThe Iron Heel (July 16, 2010)

Would you like to try our new video/audio player ? (beta!)

LibriVox recording of The Iron Heel, by Jack London. Read by Matt Soar.

The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. It chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. It is arguably 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 1970s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes. The book is uncommon 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. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

M4B audiobook of complete book

For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.


This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: Jack London
Date: 2010-07-16
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; audiobook; jack london; iron heel; science fiction

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 6,681 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: EdwardColl - - November 5, 2011
Subject: Excellent!
Thanks for reviving this "lost" work and the excellent narrative.

Reviewer: Nullifidian - - May 17, 2011
Subject: Fantastic Reading of a Frighteningly Prescient Novel
I listened to this audiobook at the same time the Michigan legislature passed its bill on "Emergency Managers" who would render city councils and all other local democracy impotent, be appointed directly by the governor, not subject to oversight, with no cap on compensation, and with the fiat powers of absolute dictator. It made the possibility of a world where the government is in thrall to monopoly trusts whose will is enforced by mercenary armies all that much more imminent and terrifyingly plausible.

London makes no secret of his sympathy with the working class, but he roots it in a realistic vision where even a future utopia still clings so to male supremacy such that they date things from 1 "Brotherhood of Man" and where a pompous academic haughtily corrects the 'errors' in a primary source text written by a mere woman. Things may be better in London's future utopia, but they're evidently not quite all they could be.

London also has a section where he discusses how certain privileged skilled trades unions would become like medieval guilds where membership passed from father to son. He clearly is in favor of the IWW's One Big Union of the working class, regardless of skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled status. This insight of his can be generalized to the way in which any "meritocratic" system would quickly degenerate to a strict class hierarchy. Though he doesn't explicitly address this aspect, it's such an obvious consequence of his reasoning that I think we can still give him half a century's precedence over Michael Young.

This is a richly rewarding book read at a professional level of quality.

Reviewer: TheBookworm - - August 7, 2010
Subject: Powerful saga, fine reading
Excellent reading of Jack London's account of the coming revolution.

The early chapters are rather rhetorical but interesting all the same as an example of how early Marxist social theory was informed by the (now discredited) model of unilinear social evolution. Sounds heavy, but it's very well explained. Later chapters are exciting and sometimes harrowing descriptions of life under the oligarchy and abortive attempts at revolution.

The reader, Matt Soar, has a breathless delivery that add to the listener's feeling of being an insider on the revolutionists' trials and plans. Well done indeed, Matt. Highly recommended.

The BookWorm (Manchester UK)