It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (Penguin Modern Classics)

An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs’ Guardian

‘Not only Lewis’s most important book but one of the most important books ever produced in the United States’ New Yorker

A vain, outlandish, anti-immigrant, fearmongering demagogue runs for President of the United States – and wins. Sinclair Lewis’s chilling 1935 bestseller is the story of Buzz Windrip, ‘Professional Common Man’, who promises poor, angry voters that he will make America proud and prosperous once more, but takes the country down a far darker path. As the new regime slides into authoritarianism, newspaper editor Doremus Jessup can’t believe it will last – but is he right? This cautionary tale of liberal complacency in the face of populist tyranny shows it really can happen here.