Bring The Jubilee

SYNOPSIS

The narrator of the novel is Hodge Backmaker, a Northern boy with a thirst for reading and a strong back, but (to his parents' misfortune) little skill at anything requiring manual dexterity. At age 17 he travels to New York, the largest city of the Union, in a desperate attempt to get into a college or university. After being robbed of his few possessions, he comes into contact with the "Grand Army", an organization working to restore the United States to its former glory through violent nationalism. The Grand Army fulfills some of the same social functions of the Ku Klux Klan of the postwar South in our timeline. Despite remaining critical of the activities of the Army, Hodge accepts work and lodging with a member working from a bookshop. Content to work for food and the opportunity to read at every waking hour, Hodge stays in the bookshop for six years before leaving New York.

Hodge's aspirations of becoming an historian researching the war (which ended with the occupation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after the Confederate victory at the Battle Of Gettysburg in 1863) become reality as he joins a self-sufficient collective of scholars and intellectuals. Here he meets a couple of research scientists who are developing Time Travel . Taking the opportunity to finally see the battle in person, the narrator travels back in time--only to cause the death of the Confederate officer who occupied the Little Round Top hill (which was where Vincent's Brigade, including Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Regiment repulsed attacks in our timeline). As this single event alters the course of history and establishes a new timeline (history as we know it), Hodge cannot go back to his own future.

THE WORLD OF BRING THE JUBILEE

After the war, the South has conquered Mexico and controls much of Latin America . Leesburg, formerly New Orleans is one of the greatest and most prosperous cities in the Confederacy. The nation is one of the world's two Superpower s, along with the German Empire, and living standards, economic growth and political and military strength are much that of the post- WW2 US in our timeline. Although Slavery has been abolished, to a large extent because of the efforts of men such as Robert E. Lee , conditions are still poor for minorities.

The North is depicted in state of perpetual recession, with the occasional glimpse of prosperity for wealthy landowners and the few lucky winners of the very popular lottery. Corruption (or at least allegations thereof) is widespread. The two main political parties are the Whigs and the Populists. The North is more hostile to African American s than the South, both for being seen as a major cause of the war which ruined the Union and because of rampant unemployment. Thus the general sentiment towards black people is that all who do not make their way to one of the free countries of Africa deserves whatever comes to them.

World War I , in the novel referred to as the Emperor's War of 1914-1916, ended with the expansion of the German Empire (presumable because of the non-intervention of the Confederacy). The position of the British Empire is weakened accordingly, although it is revealed that British America ( Canada ) still remains their territory.

THEMES

Themes of the novel include Love , Race , Scholarship and Coming Of Age , and perhaps most prominent; the relationships between concepts such as Determinism , Free Will , Chaos Theory and Morality .

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Bring The Jubilee