The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America

Dust jacket of first U.S. edition
Author	Philip Roth
Language	English
Genre	Alternative history
Publisher	Houghton Mifflin
Publication date	2004
Publication place	United States
Pages	400
ISBN	0-224-07453-9
OCLC	56804910

The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more acceptable in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels. The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the novel follows his coming of age, as well as American politics.

Roth based his novel on the isolationist ideas espoused by Lindbergh in real life as a spokesman for the America First Committee,^[1] and on his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey. The novel received praise for the realism of its world and its treatment of topics such as antisemitism, trauma, and the perception of history. The novel depicts the Weequahic section of Newark which includes Weequahic High School from which Roth graduated. A miniseries adaptation of the novel aired on HBO in March 2020.