Politics in fiction

This is a list of fictional stories in which politics features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted from this list.

Plato

Thomas More

Miguel de Cervantes

Ignacy Krasicki

Benjamin Disraeli

Turgenev

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Henrik Ibsen

Henry Adams

Émile Zola

Henry James

Anthony Hope

Bolesław Prus

Joseph Conrad

Władysław Reymont

Upton Sinclair

Martín Luis Guzmán

Aldous Huxley

Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz

George Orwell

Robert Penn Warren

Gore Vidal

Barbara Boxer

Written works[]

The Republic (ca. 360 BCE) by Plato
Panchatantra (ca. 200 BCE) by Vishnu Sarma
Utopia (1516) by Thomas More
(1578) by Jan Kochanowski
Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes
Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668) by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan
Persian Letters (1721) by Montesquieu
Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift
Candide (1759) by Voltaire
The History and Adventures of an Atom (1769) by Tobias Smollett
Fables and Parables (1779) by Ignacy Krasicki
(1790) by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz
The Partisan Leader (1836) by Nathaniel Beverley Tucker
Barnaby Rudge (1841) by Charles Dickens
The Betrothed (1842) by Alessandro Manzoni
Coningsby (1844) by Benjamin Disraeli
Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) by Benjamin Disraeli
Tancred (1847) by Benjamin Disraeli
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens
Max Havelaar (1860) by Multatuli
Fathers and Sons (1862) by Ivan Turgenev
The Palliser novels (1864–79) by Anthony Trollope
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) by George Eliot
War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy
The History of a Town (1870) by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Demons, also known as The Possessed or The Devils (1872) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Cathedral Clergy, also known as The Cathedral Folk (1872) by Nikolai Leskov
The Way We Live Now (1875) by Anthony Trollope
(1875) by John William De Forest
The Gilded Age (1876) by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
His Excellency Eugène Rougon (1876) by Émile Zola
Democracy: An American Novel (1880) by Henry Adams
An Enemy of the People (1882), play by Henrik Ibsen
(1884) by F. Marion Crawford
The Princess Casamassima (1886) by Henry James
Prince Otto (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Bostonians (1886) by Henry James
Noli Me Tangere (1887) by José Rizal
Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy
El filibusterismo (1891) by José Rizal
The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope
Pharaoh (1895) by Bolesław Prus
Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad
NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages (1900) by Jack Adams, pseudonym for A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe
The Riddle of the Sands (1903) by Erskine Childers
Nostromo (1904) by Joseph Conrad
(1905) by William Le Queux
The Four Just Men (1905) by Edgar Wallace
King Leopold's Soliloquy (1905) by Mark Twain
The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair
Mother (1906) by Maxim Gorky
The Secret Agent (1907) by Joseph Conrad
The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London
Under Western Eyes (1911) by Joseph Conrad
Philip Dru: Administrator (1912) by Edward M. House
Petersburg (1913/1922) by Andrei Bely
Man of Straw (1914) by Heinrich Mann
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (1914) by Robert Tressell
The Underdogs (1915) by Mariano Azuela
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan
Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Fall of a Nation (1916) by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Bunt (The Revolt) (1922) by Władysław Reymont
Metropolis (1925) by Thea von Harbou
The Trial (1925) by Franz Kafka
The Castle (1926) by Franz Kafka
(1929) by Martín Luis Guzmán
Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley
The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma (1932) by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz
Stamboul Train (1932) by Graham Greene
Black Mischief (1932) by Evelyn Waugh
The Forbidden Territory (1933) by Dennis Wheatley
(1933) by Paul Nizan
Fontamara (1933) by Ignazio Silone
Burmese Days (1934) by George Orwell
The House of the Four Winds (1935) by John Buchan
It Can't Happen Here (1935) by Sinclair Lewis
Bread and Wine (1936) by Ignazio Silone
(1936) by Lion Feuchtwanger
U.S.A (1937) by John Dos Passos
Alamut (1938) by Vladimir Bartol
The Confidential Agent (1939) by Graham Greene
(1939) by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Gladiators (1939) by Arthur Koestler
Darkness at Noon (1940) by Arthur Koestler
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (1945) by George Orwell
A Bell for Adano (1945) by John Hersey
El Señor Presidente (1946) by Miguel Ángel Asturias
All the King's Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren
(1947) by Chester Himes
Walden Two (1948) by B. F. Skinner
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell
Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) by Gore Vidal
(1953) by Maurice Edelman
In the Wet (1953) by Nevil Shute
The Outsider (1953) by Richard Wright
The Quiet American (1955) by Graham Greene
(1956) by Juan José Arévalo
The Last Hurrah (1956) by Edwin O'Connor
Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand
The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957) by John Steinbeck
The Ugly American (1958) by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick
Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe
[U.S. title: Guns of Darkness] (1959) by Francis Clifford
The Manchurian Candidate (1959) by Richard Condon
Advise and Consent (1959) by Allen Drury
The Best Man (1960) by Gore Vidal (play)
Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
The Golden Notebook (1962) by Doris Lessing
Seven Days in May (1962) by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey
Corridors of Power (1964) by C.P. Snow
The Man (1964) by Irving Wallace
Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert
The Squares of the City (1965) by John Brunner
(1966) by Edwin O'Connor
A Man of the People (1966) by Chinua Achebe
The Comedians (1966) by Graham Greene
The Late Bourgeois World (1966) by Nadine Gordimer
Cancer Ward (1967) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Washington, D.C. (1967) by Gore Vidal
Z (1969) by Vassilis Vassilikos
The Godfather (1969) by Mario Puzo
Being There (1971) by Jerzy Kosiński
The Lorax (1971) by Dr. Seuss
Burr (1973) by Gore Vidal
Reasons of State (1974) by Alejo Carpentier
I, the Supreme (1974) by Augusto Roa Bastos
The Chocolate War (1974) by Robert Cormier
(1974) by Mongo Beti
The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Guerrillas (1975) by V. S. Naipaul
The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) by Edward Abbey
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976) by Manuel Puig
1876 (1976) by Gore Vidal
(1977) by Robert Stone
The Public Burning (1977) by Robert Coover
(1977) by Garrett Epps
The Dead Zone (1979) by Stephen King
(1979) by Piers Paul Read
An Enemy of the State (1980) by F. Paul Wilson
A Very British Coup (1982) by Chris Mullin
Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1982–88) by Yoshiki Tanaka
V for Vendetta (1982–88) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
The Day the Leader was Killed (1983) by Naguib Mahfouz
The Floating Island (1983) by Garrett Epps
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1984) by Mario Vargas Llosa
First Among Equals (1984) by Jeffrey Archer
The Butter Battle Book (1984) by Dr. Seuss
The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood
Anthills of the Savannah (1987) by Chinua Achebe
(1988) by Steve Sohmer
House of Cards (1989) by Michael Dobbs
The Remains of the Day (1989) by Kazuo Ishiguro
Redemption (1990) by Tariq Ali
The Fourth K (1990) by Mario Puzo
Vineland (1990) by Thomas Pynchon
Patriots (1991) by Steve Sohmer
To Play the King (1991) by Michael Dobbs
Fatherland (1992) by Robert Harris
The Final Cut (1992) by Michael Dobbs
American Hero (1994) by Larry Beinhart
Blindness (1995) by Jose Saramago
Primary Colors (1996) by Joe Klein (as "Anonymous")
Absolute Power (1996) by David Baldacci
Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) by Giannina Braschi
The Feast of the Goat (2000) by Mario Vargas Llosa
Snow (2002) by Orhan Pamuk
The Coast of Utopia (2002) by Tom Stoppard
The Gospel According To Larry (2003) by Janet Tashjian
The Successor (2003) by Ismail Kadare
Seeing (2004) by José Saramago
A Time to Run (2005) by Barbara Boxer
The Ghost (2007) by Robert Harris
American Savior (2008) by Roland Merullo
The Best Laid Plans (2008) by Terry Fallis
United States of Banana (2011) by Giannina Braschi
What You Don't Know (2012) by David Belbin
Faultline 49 (2012) by David Danson
Occupied (2015) by Joss Sheldon
The Little Voice (2016) by Joss Sheldon
Money Power Love (2017) by Joss Sheldon
In The Name Of Our Father (2018) by Olukorede Yishau

Film[]

Mike Judge, director of Idiocracy (2006)

The Birth of a Nation (1915)
America (1924)
Strike (1925)
The Dark Horse (1932)
The Phantom President (1932)
Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932)
Duck Soup (1933)
Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Judge Priest (1934)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
In Old Chicago (1938)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
The Great McGinty (1940)
The Great Dictator (1940)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Meet John Doe (1941)
The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Angel on My Shoulder (1946)
The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947)
State of the Union (1948)
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
All the King's Men (1949)
A Lion Is in the Streets (1953)
Suddenly (1954)
Nikodem Dyzma (1956)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Last Hurrah (1958)
Advise and Consent (1962)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Best Man (1964)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Point of Order (1964)
Seven Days in May (1964)
Pharaoh (1966)
Z (1969)
The Man (1972)
The Godfather (1972)
The Candidate (1972)
The Parallax View (1974)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Being There (1979)
Seeing Red (1983)
Secret Honor (1984)
Power (1986)
The Godfather, Part III (1990)
Bob Roberts (1992)
The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)
Running Mates (1992)
Batman Returns (1992)
Dave (1993)
With Honors (1994)
The American President (1995)
Absolute Power (1997)
Murder at 1600 (1997)
Air Force One (1997)
The Peacemaker (1997)
Wag the Dog (1997)
Primary Colors (1998)
The Siege (1998)
Three Kings (1999)
Election (1999)
The Contender (2000)
Thirteen Days (2000)
Running Mates (2000)
Ali G Indahouse (2002)
The Quiet American (2002)
Gangs of New York (2002)
The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma (2002)
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)
The Manchurian Candidate (2004 remake of the 1962 film)
Thank You for Smoking (2005)
V for Vendetta (2005)
All the King's Men (2006)
An Unreasonable Man (2006)
Man of the Year (2006)
Idiocracy (2006)
The Lives of Others (2006)
Even Almighty (2007)
The Dark Knight (2008)
My Name Is Khan (2010)
The Ides of March (2011)
The Campaign (2012)
The Dictator (2012)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Joker (2019)

Television[]

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1962–63)
Slattery's People (1964–65)
The Prisoner (1967)
Grandpa Goes to Washington (1978-1979)
Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy (1980 Polish TV miniseries)
Yes Minister (and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister) (1980–88)
Edge of Darkness (1985)
First Among Equals (1986)
The New Statesman (1987–94)
A Very British Coup (1988)
Tanner '88 (1988)
House of Cards (1990)
Babylon 5 (1993)
To Play the King (1993)
The Politician's Wife (1995)
The Final Cut (1995)
Spin City (1996–2002)
Nostromo (1997)
The West Wing (1999-2006)
Smallville (2001–11)
24 (2001–10)
The Wire (2002–08)
The Project (2002)
Absolute Power (2003, 2005)
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
Commander-in-Chief (2005)
The Thick of It (2005–12)
Brotherhood (2006)
Party Animals (BBC Two, 2007)
Parks and Recreation (2009–15)
The Good Wife (2009–16)
Boardwalk Empire (2010–14)
Downton Abbey (2010–15)
Game of Thrones (2011–19)
The Hour (2011–12)
Boss (2011–12)
Homeland (2011-)
Scandal (2012–)
Political Animals (2012)
Veep (2012–19)
House of Cards (US) (2012–18)
Orange is the New Black (2013–)
Wentworth (original Australian title: Wentworth Prison) (2013–)
The Politician's Husband (2013)
Rectify (2013–16)
The Best Laid Plans (2014)
The Red Road (2014–15)
The Honourable Woman (2014)
Madam Secretary (2014–)
The Code (2014–)
Utopia (Australian TV series, titled Dreamland elsewhere) (2014–)
Gotham (2014–2019)
American Crime (2015–17)
The Same Sky (2016)
BrainDead (2016)
Designated Survivor (2016–)
The Good Fight (2017–)
Wildflower (2017-2018)

Musicals[]

George Washington, Jr. (1906)
Disraeli (1911)
Hamilton (1917)
Show Boat (1927)
The Threepenny Opera (1928)
Of Thee I Sing (1931)
Miss Liberty (1949)
South Pacific (1950)
Call Me Madam (1950)
The King and I (1952)
The Pajama Game (1955)
Candide (1957)
West Side Story (1958)
Fiorello! (1960)
The Sound of Music (1960)
Fiddler on the Roof (1965)
Man of La Mancha (1966)
Cabaret (1967)
1776 (1969)
Hair (1969)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)
Shenandoah (1975)
Chicago (1976)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976)
Evita (1980)
Sarafina! (1988)
The Who's Tommy (1993)
Rent (1996)
Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk (1996)
Ragtime (1998)
Parade (1998)
Urinetown The Musical (2001)
Wicked (2004)
Assassins (2004)
Caroline, or Change (2004)
The Color Purple (2006)
Grey Gardens (2007)
The Scottsboro Boys (2010)
Hamilton (2015)

Comic strips[]

Pogo
Bloom County
Doonesbury
Opus
Outland
Pearls Before Swine

External links[]

Political Film Society