Political Ideologies

Engaged citizens can regain their power. Our government can function honestly. In this critical time for our country, Lakoff argues that it is possible for progressives to reclaim freedom and communicate effectively about its real meaning.

In an astonishing, tough firsthand reportage, Chris Hedges draws on stories from inside communities across America and reveals how the hurricanes of change have allowed an array of pathologies to arise: the opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling, the corporate coup d'état of government, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the emboldening of violence and hate, the plagues of suicides, and the global upheaval caused by catastrophic climate change.

Utopia for Realists is one of those rare books that takes you by surprise and challenges what you think can happen. From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history and beyond the traditional left-right divides as he champions ideas whose time has come.

In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country - a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets.

The ascension of Vladimir Putin - a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB - to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years - as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him - Putin has grown into not only a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.

Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan.

The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people’s minds in order to change things. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. As the book’s subjects grapple with how to call out injustices while calling in those who don’t agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a fracturing country.

Conrad Black, bestselling author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, turns his attention to his "friend" President Donald J. Trump and provides the most intriguing and significant analysis yet of Trump's political rise. Ambitious in intellectual scope, contrarian in many of its opinions, and admirably concise, this is surely set to be one of the most provocative political books you are likely to listen to this year.

"Fascists", "Brownshirts", "jackbooted stormtroopers" - such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

A huge swath of Americans have put their faith in Trump, and Trump only, because they see the rest of the country building a future that doesn't have a place for them. If they would risk their lives for Trump in a pandemic, they will certainly risk the stability of American democracy. They brought the Trumpocalypse upon the country, and a post-Trumpocalypse country will have to find a way either to reconcile them to democracy - or to protect democracy from them.

Why do conservatives have such a hard time winning the economic debate in the court of public opinion? Simple, George Gilder says: Conservatives misunderstand economics almost as badly as liberals do. Republicans have been running on tax cut proposals since the era of Harding and Coolidge without seriously addressing the key problems of a global economy in decline. Enough is enough.

England's recent lurch to the right appears to be but one example of the nationalist wave sweeping across the world, yet as acclaimed Irish critic Fintan O'Toole suggests in The Politics of Pain, it is, in reality, a phenomenon rooted in World War II. We must look not to the vagaries of the European Union but, instead, far back to the end of the British empire, if we hope to understand our most fraternal ally - and the royal mess in which the British now find themselves.

In Nordic Ideology, the anticipated sequel to The Listening Society, the great philosopher Hanzi Freinacht strikes again from his refuge in the Alps—now with a yet bolder mission: to write social and political theory as a thriller. This book can be listened to independently of the first one, and it outlines a path to a metamodern society, emerging from the Nordic countries—one that emerges from but ultimately cancels and outcompetes modern society as we know it, while saving the world-system from collapse. How can this be achieved?

Two decades after the publication of The Black Book of Communism, nearly everyone is or at least should be aware of the immense evil produced by that devilish ideology first hatched when Karl Marx penned his Communist Manifesto two centuries ago. Far too many people, however, separate Marx the man from the evils wrought by the oppressive ideology and theory that bears his name.

The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.

Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer - democratic practices were present in many places at many other times. David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished - and when and why they declined - can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.

On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru's presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path. Described by a US State Department cable as "cold-blooded and bestial", Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government.

This New York Times best seller is the authoritative guide to comprehending what happened in the 2004 elections and understanding how progressive thinkers can wrest control of America's political dialogue away from the conservatives who have it now.

Hardship is now equated with victimhood. Outward displays of vulnerability in defeat are celebrated over winning unabashedly. The pursuit of excellence and exceptionalism are at the heart of American identity, and the disappearance of these ideals in our country leaves a deep moral and cultural vacuum in its wake. But the solution isn’t to simply complain about it. It’s to revive a new cultural movement in America that puts excellence first again.

Religious liberty is under attack in America. Your freedom to believe may not last much longer. To all those who say they don't care about the culture war, Erick Erickson has only one response: "The Left will not let you stay on the sidelines. You will be made to care." Now the former editor in chief of RedState.com joins with Christian author Bill Blankschaen to expose the war in America on Christians and all people of faith who refuse to bow to the worst kind of religion - secularism - one intent on systematically imposing its agenda and frightening doubters into silence.