Quieter Than <i>1984</i>, but No Less Terrifying

Imagine a United States in which the president has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to scrub its website of climate-change content, his counselor and former campaign manager has deployed the phrase “alternative facts,” a list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants is drawn up weekly and posted, and an executive order targeting Muslim travelers was issued. A sci-fi novelist could do worse than recruit any one of these plot points into a gloomy novel of the future—except, of course, they’re not plot points.

In light of these recent developments, it doesn’t take much effort to glean why George Orwell’s is suddenly selling . The story posits a terrifying authoritarian society—but it’s likely you already know that, even if you haven’t read a page of it. It’s the one with Big Brother, the Thought Police, doublethink, newspeak, the Ministry of Truth. It’s