The Wave

I got a second-hand copy of Todd Strasser's The Wave, and last night, I decided to read it. And guess what? I finished it that very night itself. While the book itself is only over 140 pages, the story was so arresting that I somehow wanted to finish it in one night - something no book has made me done in a long time. I first heard about this book while reading The Freedom Writers Diary.

The Wave is a young adult novel published in 1981, and this book was based on a telemovie, which you can see below in its entirety:



The story is set in Gordon High School, in 1969, where Ben Ross, the main character teaches history. During one lesson on the atrocities of Nazi Germany, his students asked him how could those horrible things happen in an advanced society. They were upset, and Mr. Ross wasn't sure how he could answer them.

So he devised an experiment to show that fascism can exist in a democratic society. He begins to "indoctrinate" the students in his history class and have them perform acts of discipline and shout slogans in order to bolster "unity" among the students. He then formed a group called "The Wave" in order to strengthen their solidarity further. "The Wave" even has a symbol, and members greet each other with a particular hand movement...does this sound eerily familiar?

At first "The Wave" receives praise from the school community, as it successfully instils discipline and a sense of community in students who are largely lackadaisical. Even the "class creep", Robert Billings becomes more socially acceptable through his participation in "The Wave". But as the "The Wave" expands, things change.

The thing is, this book is actually based on a real high school experiment that was carried out in 1967 in Palo Alto, California. The teacher, Rob Jones, wanted to prove that the ideals of fascism appealed even in a democracy. On the fourth day of the experiment, Ron Jones terminated the experiment as he felt it was getting out of control. He wrote about this experience some nine years after the original experiment, in this lengthy essay.

This book has also inspired the German movie Die Welle (The Wave), whose trailer follows:



If you can find this book, I highly recommend you read it. It is an interesting study on how people in a supposedly democratic society can be influenced to behave in conformist manners, even destructive ones.