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       # 2019-05-13 - The Last American by John Ames Mitchell
       
       I read this novel based on a recommendation from an online user.
       Surprisingly prescient considering the book was written in 1889.  The
       story is set in the USA in the year 2951.  At this time the USA
       empire has fallen due to several factors including climate change and
       inadequate education.  It felt eerie that the book used "climatic
       changes", nearly the same term that we use today.  It is an
       epistolary novel inspired by Persian Letters.  In fact the story
       involves Persian explorers who come from a renaissance part of the
       world, coming out of the dark ages with bits of preserved historic
       knowledge, and observing but comically misinterpreting USA art and
       "culture."
       
       Below are a few notes i took from reading this book.
       
       Prosperity was their god, with cunning and invention for his
       prophets. Their restless activity no Persian can comprehend.  This
       vast country was alive with noisy industries, the nervous Mehrikans
       darting with inconceivable rapidity from one city to another by a
       system of locomotion we can only guess at. 
       
       Some of these appliances exist to-day in Persian museums. The
       superstitions of our ancestors allowed their secrets to be lost
       during those dark centuries from which at last we are waking.
       
       Climatic changes, the like of which no other land ever experienced,
       began at that period, and finished in less than ten years a work made
       easy by nervous natures and rapid lives.  The temperature would skip
       in a single day from burning heat to winter's cold.
       
       How alike the houses! How monotonous!
       
       So, also, were the occupants. They thought alike, worked alike, ate,
       dressed and conversed alike. They read the same books; they fashioned
       their garments as directed, with no regard for the size or figure of
       the individual...
       
       Nofuhl says the religious rites of the Mehrikans were devoid of
       character. There were many religious beliefs, all complicated and
       insignificant variations one from another, each sect having its own
       temples and refusing to believe as the others. This is amusing to a
       Persian, but mayhap was a serious matter with them. One day in each
       week they assembled, the priests reading long moral lectures written
       by themselves, with music by hired singers. They then separated,
       taking no thought of temple or priest for another seven days.
       Nōfūhl says they were not a religious people.
       
       These vast fortunes soon dominated all things, even the seat of
       government and the courts of Justice. Tricks of finance brought
       fabulous gains. Young men became demoralized. For sober industry with
       its moderate profits was ridiculed.
       
       author: Mitchell, John Ames, 1845-1918
 (TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_Last_American_(novel)
       LOC:    PZ3.M694 L14
 (DIR) source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/7/4/8/7485/
       tags:   ebook,fiction,sci-fi
       title:  The Last American
       
       # Tags
       
 (DIR) ebook
 (DIR) fiction
 (DIR) sci-fi