Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901)

Ignatius Donnelly - [Caesar's Column: a story of the twentieth century]
Published in 1890 this has been labelled a 'forgotten book'. It was a popular success in its day combining an adventure story with visions of dystopia and utopia. It belongs undoubtedly to the genre of science fiction with its vision of a world balanced on the edge of catastrophe in 1988. There will be problems for some modern readers with its political viewpoint which advocates a socialist utopia with fascist leanings. Popular socialism probably accounted for its initial success, but today some antisemitism could be seen as more than unfortunate.

The story is told by Gabriel Weltstein who becomes involved in a revolution while visiting New York. He is writing to his brother who lives in Uganda and the epistolary nature of the book puts it into a first person point of view. Gabriel discovers that future America (1988) is ruled by a corrupt capitalist elite. Rampant capitalism and greed have reduced the vast majority to almost slave labour and this pattern has been repeated in Europe.

"Europe is a banking association conducted exclusively for the benefit of the bankers. Bonds take the place of national aspirations. To squeeze the wretched is the great end of government; to toil and submit, the destiny of the peoples".

Gabriel rescues a man from being run down by a horse and carriage soon after he arrives and falls in love with a young woman passenger. The man(Max) proves to be one of the leaders of an underground plot to overthrow the capitalist oligarchy and Gabriel soon gets involved. He must also rescue Estelle (the young woman) who has been sold as a concubine to the house of Prince Cabano the effective head of the oligarchy. The date of the uprising is only days away and Gabrielle is frightened by the rapacious mobs that he predicts will be in the forefront of the revolution. He realises that Max and his network of followers cannot control the situation.

Gabrielle gets a first hand account of the world situation from Max which allows the author to paint a picture of a world where 1% or less of the population control all the resources and the more power they get allows them to drive down wages and increase profits. He gives a short history, which demonstrates how the huge ghettos were created and prove to be excellent recruiting ground for revolutionaries. The adventure story is Gabrielles attempts to rescue Estelle and flee the revolutionaries who are out for the blood of all well dressed people. Bloody encounters and horrific scenes are described; civilisation is on the brink of destruction and Donnelly spends a chapter on describing a new utopia based on socialist principles that could emerge from the wreckage: the political story runs parallel with the derring-do.

The book written in 1880 certainly feels like a Victorian novel. Although it would be only nine years before the invention of the motor car Donnelly does not see this coming and so horse and carriages are the main form of transport and dirigibles are the only form of air traffic. He imagines that man has tapped into the Aurora Borealis to provide light, despite electric street lighting by being trialed in London two years earlier. This makes the book feel more like a political adventure story rather than science fiction.

This mixed bag of popular entertainment and political education is not without its merits as certainly some aspects of the novel seem to point the way to where the current world situation is maybe heading. Ignatius Donnelly was an American Congressman, populist writer and fringe scientist. The adventure story is full of Victorian naivety but it is a useful peg on which Donnelly can practice his political theories. It is violent and probably excessive, but is an interesting read and so three stars.… (altro)

Nicholas Ruddick's introduction to my Wesleyan edition of Caesar's Column argues for its place in the lineage of science fiction: Donnelly was the first to use Jules Verne's motifs in American literature, and George Griffith borrowed from Caesar's Column when he wrote his own proto-sf. And indeed, there are a lot of things I recognize from later sf: a secret revolutionary Brotherhood, fleets of air-ships, a corrupt world that needs to be obliterated so it can be rebuilt, flagrant racism that is distasteful to the modern reader. Donnelly is a little more sophisticated than Griffith is, I think; his analysis of the fact that public schools made the "trampled" working classes intelligent enough to want to rebel made me think of a similar point H. G. Wells makes about colonialism in The War in the Air.

The end of the novel is more realistic that Griffith's, too, or maybe I just mean it's bleaker. Unlike all those apocalyptic novels where destruction leads to utopia, Donnelly sounds a pessimistic note near the end: "The rude and begrimed insurgents are raised by their terrible purposes to a certain dignity. They are the avengers of time--the God-sent--the righters of the world's wrongs--the punishers of the ineffably wicked. They do not mean to destroy the world; they will reform it--redeem it. They will make it a world where there shall be neither toil nor oppression. But, poor fellows! their arms are more potent for evil than their brains for good. They are omnipotent to destroy; they are powerless to create" (200). But the book is just as condemnatory of those who permitted/caused the conditions that the mob rose up against. The end of the novel is bleak all around.… (altro)

It's more convincing than I expected. The author's work was first published in 1882. He presents geological, cross-cultural, historical, linguistic, and biographical evidence. Primary points include: geological evidence of major land mass in the Atlantic Ocean which sank before our modern history due to volcanic eruption and underwater turbulence (tops of the Azores are a remnant); land mass includes extentions toward Africa and South American and a point of island near Ireland; plethora examples exist of similarities between American and European history (direction of origin; flood legend; 12 (or 10) tribes/families legends; stories of gods; architecture (pyramids, mounds, arches, etc.); language (Atlantis, Atlazl, Adhem, Adam; Baal, Bel, Baalz, god names, and common terms); last section ties specific details to Atlantean legends from Mississippi Valley, Ohio valley, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Ireland, Iberian Peninsula, Egypt, Greece, Italy, et al. The beginning section quotes Plato's entire discourse on Atlantis, which scholars have debated as being either a moral example or an actual recounting of what other scholars told him. Atlantean society had 12 organized families/tribes; black, white, and red races; well-described laws (with legacies in Egypt, American, Judaism, Islam, etc); scientific discovery (gunpowder, major grains, compass, et al). The founders of Atlantis became "gods" in descendant cultures.… (altro)