On The Run

Like some other novels by Poul Anderson, Shield is an "on the run" story. Our hero is permanently on the run from his own government and its enemies with every man's hand against him:

Military Security arrests Koskinen but he escapes when Chinese agents attack;
a gang boss captures Koskinen but he escapes when Chinese agents attack;
revolutionary conspirators detain Koskinen but he escapes on his own initiative;
Military Security besieges Koskinen but the Air Force rescues him.

But more happens in the novel than that! Koskinen talks with an influential industrialist, with the industrialist's politically experienced secretary, with a trade union leader who turns out to be one of the revolutionaries and with a social philosopher. The dominance of Military Security is explained with the historically resonant term, "Caesarism." The Roman general Marius is mentioned for perhaps the fifth time in Anderson's works.

The head of Military Security and the revolutionaries are alike in sacrificing individual human beings to their vision of society. Anderson, speaking through the industrialist's secretary, analyses the American, French and Russian Revolutions and I disagree with one point that is made about one of these revolutions but that is to be expected in a novel with so much political content.