The Unparalleled Invasion

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The Unparalleled Invasion
by Jack London
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Short story
Published inMcClure's
Publication typeMagazine
Publication dateJuly 1910
TextThe Unparalleled Invasion at Wikisource

"The Unparalleled Invasion" is a science fiction story written by American author Jack London. It was first published in McClure's in July 1910.[1]

Plot summary[]

Under the influence of Japan, China modernizes and undergoes its own version of the Meiji Reforms in the 1910s. In 1922, China breaks away from Japan and fights a brief war that culminates in the Chinese annexation of the Japanese possessions of Korea, Formosa, and Manchuria. Over the next half century, China's population steadily grows, and eventually migration overwhelms European colonies in Asia. The United States and the other Western powers launch a biological warfare campaign against China, resulting in the total destruction of China's population, the few survivors of the plague being killed out of hand by European and American troops, and China then being colonized by the Western powers. This opens the way to a joyous epoch of "splendid mechanical, intellectual, and art output". In the 1980s, war clouds once more gather between Germany and France. The story ends with the nations of the world solemnly pledging not to use the same techniques that they had used against China, whereas the pledge is implied to be unstable with German soldiers having been exposed to "a sort of hybridization between plague-germs" in China and their physiological conditions being studied by German scientists.

Background and context[]

"The Unparalleled Invasion" was included in The Strength of the Strong, a collection of stories by London published by Macmillan in 1914,[2] which also included "The Dream of Debs", a critique of capitalist society in the US, and "The Strength of the Strong", which used a primitive background as metaphor of social injustice among men.

"The Unparalleled Invasion" has been used to support claims of racism in London’s work.[3][4] Academics pointed out that the premise, themes, and even some passages were borrowed directly from London's 1904 "Yellow Peril" essay, where London warns that "the menace to the Western World lies, not in the [Japanese] little brown man, but in the four hundred millions of [Chinese] yellow men". [5]

However, other academics have also claimed that this story is a "strident warning against race hatred and its paranoia", due to its focus on the danger posed to China by the West. The story has also been viewed as a prescient political prediction of the rise of China as a world political power triggered in part by Japan’s imperial aspirations. [6] [7]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ The Unparalleled Invasion title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, retrieved 2015-02-04.
  2. ^ The Strength of the Strong Archived 2015-05-27 at the Wayback Machine The World of Jack London, retrieved 2015-02-04.
  3. ^ Shi, Flair Donglai (February 2019). "The Yellow Peril as a Travelling Discourse: A Comparative Study of Wang Lixiong's". Comparative Critical Studies. 16 (1): 7–30. doi:10.3366/ccs.2019.0308.
  4. ^ "Jack London's many sides emerge in James L. Haley's Wolf". Slate.com. Retrieved 2014-01-03. Slate quotes it having the line "the only possible solution to the Chinese problem", although the line doesn't exist in the short story.
  5. ^ Swift, John N. (Fall 2002). "Jack London's "The Unparalleled Invasion": Germ Warfare, Eugenics, and Cultural Hygiene". American Literary Realism. 35 (1): 59–71.
  6. ^ Jeanne Campbell Reesman. Jack London: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-1678-8. OCLC 1014742577.
  7. ^ Métraux, Daniel (June 2008). "Jack London Reporting from Tokyo and Manchuria: The Forgotten Role of an Influential Observer of Early Modern Asia" (PDF). Asia Pacific Perspectives. 8 (1): 1–5.

External links[]

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