BOOKSCAN #8
REVOLT IN 2100, by Robert Heinlein
Baen Books (1986)
This compilation consists of a novel, "If This Goes On...", and 2 novellas, "Coventry" and "Misfit". None of them is a major work though they form a part of Heinlein's Future History framework. The novel features a theocratic dictatorship in the US. Heinlein, realizing that this scenario might seem like an improbable scenario to some reader, provided a postscript - and part of that postscript is the reason why I include this book in my Bookscan series of blogs.
And here it is:
[With reference to] the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legilate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism.
It appears to me as if Heinlein, in 1986, was predicting Trump and Modi.
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