Erasing History
How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
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- 6,99 €
Publisher Description
From Yale professor and bestselling author of How Fascism Works, a searing confrontation with the authoritarian right's attacks to undo a century of work to advance social justice action on race, gender, sexuality and class.
Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity's past began in schools; the same place so many of today's right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks.
Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vladimir Putin, Turkey's Recip Erdogan, and Argentina's Javier Milei have all reached the same conclusion: if you want to roll back the clock on civil rights, equity and inclusion, a great place to start is in schools.
Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right's tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history. He shows that hearts and minds are won in our schools and universities - and that governments are currently ill-prepared to do the work of uprooting fascist policies being foisted upon our children through school boards, in courtrooms, and in the boardrooms of the organisations trusted to train teachers and create the materials they'll share with their students.
Deeply informed and urgently needed, this book is a vibrant call to action for lovers of democracy worldwide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fascist governments begin and thrive by undermining and at times destroying education, according to this uninspiring follow-up to 2020's How Fascism Works. With a particular focus on authoritarian leadership in Russia, India, and Israel, Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale, argues that the seeds of nationalism are planted when public education is threatened and replaced with schooling that emphasizes inherent hierarchies, traditional gender roles, and "national innocence" (meaning the absolution of a country's past sins). The end result is a worldview that presents a clearly defined enemy and a clearly defined victor, which, Stanley suggests, is the essence of the us-versus-them mentality of fascism. The book is filled with examples of various nations that have accomplished this, but sparse on details as to how, and readers may find themselves wishing to hear more about what led governments to succeed or fail at these anti-education goals. Somewhat confusingly muted, the narrative gives an overall impression of mild interest more than the duress one associates with the threat of impending dictatorship, which Stanley does see as a legitimate possibility ("If one looks at what is happening at the best universities in India, one can see a grim but plausible future near term course for America's"). This warns of an imminent fascist future but doesn't delve far enough into how to stop it.
