The Strength of the Strong is a collection of short stories. These were written about the middle of London's career, after his Klondike period and before his South Pacific period, when there was quite a bit of variety in his work, so these stories take place in diverse settings. Many of them deal with political issues, and display London's devotion to Socialism. It's an allegorical tale set in caveman times, in which London explains the class struggle from a Socialist perspective, with various characters standing as symbols for government, industry, labor, religion, etc. For the most part they are imaginative in their speculations. "The Unparalleled Invasion" tells the story of China's rise as a superpower and how the West deals with it. Unfortunately it's marred by a racist attitude toward the Chinese and a glorification of genocide.

John Griffith "Jack" London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.