American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold is the second book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove. It takes place during the period of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression (specifically from 1924 to March 4, 1934). During this era in Turtledove's Southern Victory world, the Confederate States of America, stretching from Sonora to Virginia, is led by Whigs (with the fascist Freedom Party gaining more and more power) while the United States of America (which has been occupying Canada, Newfoundland, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Sandwich Islands) is controlled by Socialists.
The title is derived from the apocalyptic vision appearing in Yeats' poem The Second Coming: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."
Plot summary
The new medium of "the wireless" (TL-191's name for a radio) offers novel ways for politicians to reach the people. Jake Featherston is the first politician to realize its potential, and soon people sitting in their homes can hear his raspy, thundery voice shouting from their radio sets, telling them the "truth" about the Yankees, Whigs, and Black Southerners. Even with this broadened appeal to the masses, the Freedom Party's hopes ebb further with Featherston's defeat at the polls in 1927 against incumbent Whig Burton Mitchel III. The Confederate people are just starting to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity, and the War and black uprisings are coming to be seen as part of the past, despite Featherston and his stalwarts doing their utmost to keep them alive in the collective memory. Things change when, in early 1929, the world's stock markets crash and financial and economic depression results.
In the 1928 US Presidential Election, Socialist Vice President Hosea Blackford and his running mate Hiram Johnson defeat Democratic candidate Calvin Coolidge by a narrow margin after finally taking the electoral votes from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Blackford also carries the electoral votes from New York, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, and California. Coolidge is able to capture all six of the New England states (including his home and birth states of Massachusetts and Vermont), Kentucky, Houston, Kansas, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada. It was a closer race than the 1924 election had been, but Coolidge ultimately conceded to Blackford over the telephone. The two would meet for a rematch in the following election four years later.
When the Great Depression occurs, Burton Mitchel III is blamed in the Confederacy. In the U.S. which came out of the 1920s with a booming economy and with the Canadian revolt having been crushed in 1925, newly elected President Hosea Blackford takes the heat, with shantytowns and slums being named "Blackfordburghs". Millions lose their jobs, and in Utah, (under military occupation since 1916), a fanatical Mormon sniper guns down Governor-General John J. Pershing. When Japan and the U.S. go to war in 1932 after Japan is caught smuggling weapons to Pacific Canada (the occupied Canadian province of British Columbia) by the U.S.S. Remembrance, and Japanese bombers attack Los Angeles. In the 1932 presidential election, President Blackford is defeated by Calvin Coolidge and his running mate Herbert Hoover in a landslide. However Coolidge is never able to take office. On January 5, 1933, he dies of a heart attack about a month before he could take office. (In real life, Former President Coolidge died of a heart attack on the same date.) Vice President-Elect Hoover assumes the presidency, practicing Coolidge's campaign policy of government non-intervention in the economy.
At the same time in the C.S.A., whole cities are echoing to the boot-steps of marching Freedom Party Stalwarts, their ranks flowing once more with angry citizens, preparing for Election Day 1933. Jake Featherston attacks the Mitchel Administration with the venom and hate, blaming Mitchel for the Crash, and condemning his ineffectual response to the floods that devastated the Mississippi River valley in 1927. Confederates respond well to Featherston's rants. During the 1933 Confederate States Presidential Election, Featherston and his running mate Willy Knight defeat Whig candidate Samuel Longstreet and Radical Liberal candidate Cordell Hull. On taking the oath of office on March 4, 1934, the world holds its breath: "Freedom" is on the march.