An important book about the most significant threat to global democracy.
A historian of fascist movements encourages us to use "the f-word" when describing contemporary far-right populist leaders.
During his career, Finchelstein, author of A Brief History of Fascist Lies, has focused his research on the tendency of right-wing populism to escalate into full-blown fascism. The author’s concern is both personal and professional. He was born in Argentina as that nation descended into "gruesome dictatorship.” In November 2020, he authored a prescient Washington Post op-ed that warned readers about a possible coup attempt in the U.S. With this cautionary perspective, Finchelstein describes a new breed of politician willing to destroy democracy for short-term political gain: the "wannabe fascist." He makes a strong case that Trumpism is a new chapter in the history of antidemocratic politics, drawing on research and scholarship into the histories of fascism and populism. He zeroes in on a few key elements of fascism, including political violence and the militarization of politics; lies and propaganda; xenophobia; and dictatorship. In his sobering analysis, features of Trumpism seem eerily reminiscent of past fascist history. Trump's cries of "witch hunt" echo fascist warrior-martyr tropes, and social media outlets provide him with what historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls “a direct channel to the people.” Furthermore, Trump's comments on the "infection" of immigrants reflect classic fascism's need for "mortal enemies" and their dehumanization. Similarly, the GOP's blithe enabling of Trumpism recalls earlier apathetic responses to the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. In an epilogue, Finchelstein considers whether the world is on the cusp of a deep shift into fascism, assessing the global potential for a destruction of democracies from within. He implores readers "to learn from history to gain an understanding of the fascist dangers of the present,” and he provides a cogent user's manual for making those vital connections.
An important book about the most significant threat to global democracy.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9780520392496
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.
A New Jersey senator’s moral manifesto.
Booker situates his narrative in the wake of his 2025 record-breaking 25-hour stand on the Senate floor, an act of physical endurance and moral insistence that serves as its animating example. Though not framed as memoir, the episode implicitly positions Booker himself as a model of the virtues he argues are essential to democratic life. Organized around 10 qualities, including agency, vulnerability, truth, perseverance, and grace, the book advances a clear thesis. “In this book, I argue that many Americans who came before us, and many among us today, have consistently proven that virtues are practical: They expand our power, deepen our sense of belonging, and equip us to endure and ultimately prevail.” Booker illustrates this claim through figures such as the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, whose willingness to endure sacrifice for principle anchors the book’s moral lineage, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose composure under public scrutiny is presented as an example of dignity as civic strength. These portraits reinforce Booker’s belief that character, sustained over time, can shape public life, even when political outcomes remain uncertain or incomplete. He supplements these examples with personal stories drawn from family, faith, and community, delivered with emotional conviction and a tone that remains affirming and carefully calibrated. Much of the narrative reads like an expansive commencement address, earnest and reassuring, offering moral affirmation at moments when readers might reasonably expect sharper confrontation. That rhetorical choice ultimately defines the book’s limits. Booker acknowledges political conflict and compromise, but rarely examines them in depth, and while urging leaders to take moral risks, he avoids sustained reflection on how some of his own political decisions have tested the virtues he promotes. The result is a principled but self-conscious work that affirms shared values while offering little guidance for navigating power and accountability.
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781250436733
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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