Political Ideologies

Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us.

As a highly respected pollster for corporate and Republican clients and a frequent television talk show guest, Kellyanne Conway had already established herself as one of the brightest lights on the national political scene when Donald Trump asked her to run his presidential campaign. She agreed, delivering him to the White House, becoming the first woman in American history to manage a winning presidential campaign. Who she is, how she did it, and who tried to stop her is a fascinating story of personal triumph and political intrigue that has never been told…until now.

From Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck and Matt Drudge, Americans think of right-wing media as integral to contemporary conservatism. But today's well-known personalities make up the second generation of broadcasting and publishing activists. Messengers of the Right tells the story of the little-known first generation. Beginning in the late 1940s, activists working in media not only started an array of enterprises - publishing houses, radio programs, magazines, book clubs, television shows - they also built the American conservative movement.

"The Soul of Man under Socialism" is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde, following his conversion to anarchist philosophy after having read the works of the philosopher Peter Kropotkin. Propounding a libertarian socialist worldview, Wilde argues that - under capitalism - most people are forced to spoil their lives through an unhealthy altruism trying to solve the social problems caused by capitalism, instead of developing their true talents. He did not object to altruism per se, but was concerned about its misapplication in a way that does not address the root of the problem.

Cyprus gained independence in 1960 without a strong national identity. Citizens considered themselves Greeks or Turks, not Cypriots. Ethnic pride, reinforced by proximity to both countries, inflamed the majority of the population, and was encouraged by the historic rivalry between the two homelands. While examining the nation-state as an institution, I discovered a mechanism I now call transnational nationalism. Analysis of the Cypriot crisis of 1974 gives further insight into cultural politics in lands such as Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Karl Marx's devastating critique of capitalism, and his proposal of communism as the answer to the failings of the capitalist system, bore their greatest fruits in the twentieth century with the formation of the communist state in the Soviet Union. This great venture has now all but completely failed. Yet the force of the communist belief offered the prospect of "justice on this earth" to countless numbers. And Marx's critique has influenced generations of thinkers who call themselves Marxists.

In The Conservative Heart, Arthur C. Brooks contends that after years of focusing on economic growth and traditional social values, it is time for a new kind of conservatism - one that helps the vulnerable without mortgaging our children's future. In Brooks' daring vision, this conservative movement fights poverty, promotes equal opportunity, celebrates earned success, and values spiritual enlightenment. It is an inclusive movement with a positive agenda to help people lead happier, more hopeful, and more satisfied lives.

Just as Donald Trump's victorious campaign for the US presidency shocked the world, the seemingly sudden national prominence of white supremacists, xenophobes, militia leaders, and mysterious "alt-right" figures mystifies many. But the American extreme right has been growing steadily in number and influence since the 1990s with the rise of patriot militias. Following 9/11, conspiracy theorists found fresh life; and in virulent reaction to the first black US president, militant racists have come out of the woodwork.

Since the day Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign, the left has waged a demented war against him. Liberals used to pride themselves on their ultra-hipness, but Trump has turned them into weeping little girls in pink party dresses. The very people who once mocked right-wingers for (allegedly) overreacting to every little thing are now the ones hyperventilating and hatching insane conspiracy theories.

"Le Manifeste du Parti communiste" est un essai politico-philosophique rédigé par le philosophe allemand Karl Marx en 1848 avec la participation de son ami Friedrich Engels. "Le Manifeste du Parti communiste" peut être vu comme un résumé de la pensée marxiste.

He's the media's darling, an inspiration to many, and the answer to everything from healthcare to taxes. He is Barack Obama - the silver-tongued senator with a phrase for everything and a promise for everyone. Sound too good to be true?

Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated 20th-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable....

Martha C. Nussbaum turns her attention to the political crisis that has polarized American since the 2016 election. Although today’s atmosphere is marked by partisanship and divisive rhetoric, Nussbaum focuses on what so many pollsters and pundits have overlooked: The political is always emotional. Globalization has produced feelings of powerlessness in millions in the West. That sense of powerlessness bubbles into resentment and blame. While this politics of blame is exemplified by the election of Trump and the Brexit vote, Nussbaum argues it can be found on the left and the right.

We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits.

Die Party ist vorbei. Der Crash ist da. Aus der Bankenkrise 2008 wurde über Nacht eine Krise der Weltwirtschaft. Da ist guter Rat teuer, und man beginnt sich an die Spekulationsblasen und Krisen der Vergangenheit zu erinnern. Kapitalismuskritik ist wieder in Mode, bleibt aber meist an der Oberfläche. Doch wie keinem anderen Ökonomen ist es vor 150 Jahren Karl Marx gelungen, die aberwitzigen Bewegungen des Kapitals und seinen Hang zur Selbstzerstörung zu beleuchten.

Richard Bessel, history professor at the University of York, specializes in the social and political history of Nazi Germany. In four compelling essays, he forcefully argues that racism made war inevitable. The Third Reich, led by "[A] band of political gangsters", came to power with a deep ideological commitment to war and racism. As the driving force behind the economics, social policy, and propaganda of Germany, racial hatred was the catalyst that plunged Europe into war.

In this visionary book, Dennis Prager, one of America's most original thinkers, contends that humanity confronts a monumental choice. The world must decide between American values and its two oppositional alternatives: Islamism and European-style democratic socialism. Prager makes the case for the American value system as the most viable program ever devised to produce a good society. Those values are explained here more clearly and persuasively than ever before.

In 1927, classical liberalism, based on a belief in individualism, reason, capitalism, and free trade, was dying, when one of the 20th century's greatest social thinkers wrote this combative and convincing restatement. Nowhere are the key principles of Mises' philosophy better represented than in this timeless work. Mises was a careful and logical theoretician who believed that ideas rule the world, and this especially comes to light in Liberalism.

Around the world today, nationalism is back - and it’s often deeply troubling. Populist politicians exploit nationalism for authoritarian, chauvinistic, racist, and xenophobic purposes, reinforcing the view that it is fundamentally reactionary and antidemocratic. But Yael (Yuli) Tamir makes a passionate argument for a very different kind of nationalism - one that revives its participatory, creative, and egalitarian virtues, answers many of the problems caused by neoliberalism and hyperglobalism, and is essential to democracy at its best.

Conventional wisdom holds that America has been a Christian nation since the Founding Fathers. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse argues that the idea of "Christian America" is nothing more than a myth - and a relatively recent one at that.