In The Iron Heel, Jack London ditches the howling wilderness for the howling engines of capitalist doom. Set in a chillingly plausible near-future America, this revolutionary dystopia follows Avis Everhard as she recounts her husband Ernest’s resistance against a ruthless oligarchy—the Iron Heel. Through Avis’s eyes, we witness the rise of a totalitarian regime that crushes socialist uprisings, installs a brutal labor caste system, and silences dissent with steel-toed efficiency. From the explosive Chicago Commune to the smoldering embers of the Peasant Revolt, London’s prophetic tale doesn’t just warn us about the future—it grabs us by the collar and screams, “This is how it starts.”

Enter the Podcasters of the Apocalypse on the wildly unpredictable My Internet Has Stopped Working podcast. Armed with sarcasm, social theory, and questionable coffee, the podcasters plunge into The Iron Heel like time travelers with Marxist decoder rings. They unpack London’s eerie foresight, tracing connections between the fictional Oligarchy and real-world power structures that still stomp through history. They ask the big questions: Is Avis a reliable narrator or just love-drunk on revolution? Is Ernest Everhard a hero or just Jack London’s heavily mustached self-insert? And how did London predict both fascism and late-stage capitalism decades before they became household hashtags?

From meme-worthy moments (“I’m sorry, did he just overthrow a city during lunch?”) to serious analysis of class warfare, propaganda, and resistance, the Podcasters of the Apocalypse turn The Iron Heel into a modern-day warning label—one that might as well say, “Break glass in case of oligarchy.”

By the end, you'll want to rise up… or at least start a book club.

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