Provocative and full of alarming racism from all sides, this book depicts an America that's not the America we know today. In the wake of a German/Japanese win of WWII, the former U.S. has been split as spoils. Americans are second class citizens (although frankly, each racial faction regards every other as second class), and everyone is caught up in the power struggle between East and West.
The Man in the High Castle is the author of a book (within the book) which tells the story of a WWII in which the Allies won the day, and that for me was where Dick's creative spirit really shone. Essentially, his in-book version of what could have been had we won left out FDR and Truman, and extrapolated from there how the world would have shaped up without them. It's alternative history within alternative history, all skewed by the point of view of whichever character (including, I think, us as readers) happens to be mulling it over in the moment. His take speaks to inevitability, the crush of power and defeat, and the limits of what humanity can inflict and endure.
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