The Second American Depression: A Journal

By Clement Dodge

This short novel looks examines the first days of the Second American Depression as seen through the journal of someone who lived through it.

This depression is sparked by a widespread series of terrorist attacks which take place sometime in the decade of the 2010's. The disruptions, particularly to the electric grid are almost immediate. But even though there is relatively little physical damage, the fact that the power grid is working at almost 100% efficiency means that there is little margin for error. A series of cascading failures almost immediately plunge the country into darkness and deprive it of most of its communications and industrial infrastructure.

This is the journal of someone who lived through those early days. He's a lawyer and a ham radio operator, so he has unique insights not only into the technological issues, but also the legal issues that ensue.

The country survives, and even thrives, as evidenced by a preface that he writes years later. Things even get back to normal. But it's a new normal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clement Dodge
• Release date: Sep 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465788931

Book preview

Preface

This book consists mostly of the journal I maintained during the early days of what historians are now starting to call the Second American Depression. Having been born in the 1960's, I, like most Americans, lived the majority of my life during times of relative peace and prosperity. That peace and prosperity had been in effect more or less since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Very few Americans were alive who had experienced The Great Depression, as we typically referred to the 1930's. Of course, that era is now referred to as The First American Depression to distinguish it from the more recent one.

Historians are quick to point out that the two depressions have quite different historical roots: They like to let us know that the first one had primarily economic roots, whereas the second one was initiated by an act of war. In reality, the war was already brewing by the time the First Depression came around, and came to full fruition in 1939 (or, from an American point of view, 1941). In the case of the second depression, the beginning of the war marked a clear beginning to the depression, although many of us who lived through that time saw hints that it was coming for merely economic reasons.

In a sense, the two depressions were fundamentally different. The first depression was marked by a time of unprecedented economic growth, which included the beginnings of much of the infrastructure that we take for granted today, such as the laying of the first electrical lines and the first primitive telephone lines. In addition, the nation’s road network, although greatly modernized over the years, really got its start in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century. Despite the crash of 1929, most of this infrastructure continued working admirably for most of the century. Indeed, the First Depression actually saw a great deal of expansion of things like electrical distribution, public roads, and telephone lines. For example, in 1929, most people didn’t have a telephone. By 1945, most people did have a telephone.

In about 1970, this infrastructure was more or less complete. There were, of course, innovations over the years. For example, the telephone system of 1970 consisted almost entirely of copper lines carrying individual audio conversations. In the late twentieth century and into the beginning of the twenty first, this system was largely converted to what at the time was called an Information Superhighway, since individual audio links were replaced with the capability of handling large amounts of data. But fundamentally, they were the same as they had been for a century–a way to move information electronically from one place to another, including virtually every home and place of business in the country.

The main cause of the Second Depression was the destruction of just a small portion of this infrastructure. The railways and highways, along with the telephone system, despite the complaints still heard today, actually survived quite