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Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
“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?
Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism. .
Price: $16.15
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The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic
The Case for Bureaucracy persuasively argues that American public servants and administrative institutions are among the best in the world. Contrary to popular stereotypes, they are neither sources of great waste nor a threat to liberty, but social assets of critical value to a functioning democracy. In presenting his case, Goodsell touches on core aspects of public administration while drawing on important, recent events to bring case material and empirical evidence fully up to date. This new edition incorporates the events of 9/11 to explore their impact on future bureaucratic performance, speaking specifically to the massive reorganization under the new Department of Homeland Security. As well, Goodsell offers a complete assessment of the reinventing government movement and related reforms to show how far bureaucracies have come, while pointing to the challenges they continue to face. Updating worth highlighting: - New data on public perceptions of bureaucracy.
- New section on the delegation of policy implementation to contractors and nonprofits.
- New statistics regarding quality-of-life improvements in American society since the 1980s.
- New profiles of real bureaucrats--and citizen interaction with them--giving bureaucracy a human face.
- New material on bureaucratic contributions to the political system that go beyond implementing policy.
- New coverage of the administrative consolidation following 9/11 and competitive outsourcing by the Bush Administration.
- New analysis of current reform proposals focused on market competition and business management practices.
- New proposals for ways to improve bureaucracy.
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Price: $24.99
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On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic. By way of clarification and supplement to my last book Beyond Good and Evil (Oxford World's Classics)
On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about interpretation and the history of ethics which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both. This is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. The introduction places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience..
Price: $6.61
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Against Love: A Polemic
Less against love than against the cultural constraints that leads us to create wrong-headed ideas of love, this is book is the perfect antidote to any lingering social guilt about being happily single. Against Love: A Polemic will both shock and irritate, especially when you find yourself nodding your head in agreement while laughing at another broken taboo. Laura Kipnis (author of Bound and Gagged, Ecstasy Unlimited) clearly enjoyed writing this; she lets her wit run rampage over classic married situations and human emotions with results that include comparing adulterers to freedom fighters (using sharpened spoons to tunnel out from under love's barbed wire fences) and referring to tearful confessions of cheating as "funny little couple rituals." These make it fun, but the iconoclastic beauty is in her questions. How did good relationships come to be considered work instead of play? Why, unlike most of history and many other modern cultures, do Americans assume love and marriage go hand-in-hand? What lead to infidelity committed by public figures becoming a source of outrage? Kipnis doesn't have answers. Although urging us to have more compassion for our own desires, she expects her readers are smart enough to supply their own in response to her ideas. That attitude itself is a treat--if you're prepared to keep up through a complex whirlwind of Freud, Marx, Gingrich, Wollstonecraft, and several generations of pop culture. Jill Lightner.
Price: $7.32
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Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness (Oberon Masters)
In a series of bold, unsparing polemics, A C Grayling exposes the dangerous unreason he sees at the heart of religious faith and highlights the urgent need we have to reject it in all its forms, without compromise. In its place he argues for a set of values based on reason, reflection, and sympathy, taking his cue from the great ethical tradition of Western philosophy. .
Price: $10.89
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Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties
The simple question “What is minimalism?” has defied simple answers Artists known as minimalists have distinctively different methods and points of view. This highly readable history of minimalist art shows how artists as diverse as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Anne Truitt came to be designated as minimalists during a series of exhibitions in the 1960s. “I can think of no book that even undertakes a comparable art historical account—not merely tracing a movement year by year, but showing how the movement’s consciousness of itself emerged.”—Arthur Danto, Times Literary Supplement“Many skeptics deem the sixties too close for comfort and hence not suitable for an art history in the grand tradition. James Meyer proves them wrong. Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties establishes a historical precision and seriousness that many have thought lacking in the recent wave of writing about postwar American art.”—Christine Mehring, Art Journal“By far the best account to date of Minimalism’s development and the essential point of departure for all future research on the subject.”—Pepe Karmel, Art in America.
Price: $25.68
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Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (Polemics)
Argues that ordinary people exercise extraordinary political courage and power in American politics when, frustrated by politics as usual, they rise up in anger and hope, and defy the authorities and the status quo rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives. By doing so, they disrupt the workings of important institutions and become a force in American politics. Drawing on critical episodes in U.S. history, Piven shows that it is in fact precisely at those seismic moments when people act outside of political norms that they become empowered to their full democratic potential..
Price: $10.98
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Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System (Critical America)
"Duncan Kennedy's critique of legal education now gets the wide distribution it deserves Kennedy's insightful skewering of legal education, supplemented by his own reflections on the work and views of other legal educators, will provide prospective law students with a flavor of what they are in for— and will remind lawyers of what they went through. Kennedy's message is as important today as it was two decades ago when he first penned this work."—Mark Tushnet, Georgetown University "Duncan Kennedy's little red book has become a classic. But now with its republication twenty years later, Kennedy's 'polemic against the system' takes us beyond its origins as a field guide to legal education. Amplified by the voices of other distinguished scholars, this stunning collection of essays forces us to consider the ways in which hierarchies and their resulting social alienation disfigure contemporary society, not just our law schools."—Lani Guinier, Harvard University "Kennedy's book remains one of the defining blows of critical legal studies and an enduring challenge to the entire structure of legal education. It remains as vital, incisive and daring as when it first appeared."—Scott Turow, author of One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School. "An important founding text in the history of critical approaches to law taken by scholars located in law schools."—The Law and Politics Book Review In 1983 Harvard law professor Duncan Kennedy self-published a biting critique of the law school system called Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy. This controversial booklet was reviewed in several major law journals—unprecedented for a self-published work—and influenced a generation of law students and teachers. In this well-known critique, Duncan Kennedy argues that legal education reinforces class, race, and gender inequality in our society. However, Kennedy proposes a radical egalitarian alternative vision of what legal education should become, and a strategy, starting from the anarchist idea of workplace organizing, for struggle in that direction. Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy is comprehensive, covering everything about law school from the first day to moot court to job placement to life after law school. Kennedy's book remains one of the most cited works on American legal education. The visually striking original text is reprinted here, making it available to a new generation. The text is buttressed by commentaries by five prominent legal scholars who consider its meaning for today, as well as by an introduction and afterword by the author that describes the context in which Kennedy wrote the book, including a brief history of critical legal studies. .
Price: $17.10
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