Democracy Awakening
Notes on the State of America
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller
A vital and urgent call to action about the precarious state of American democracy, charting its historical challenges and current threats, from one of our era’s most important and insightful historians, with a new afterword by the author.
“Magisterial.” –The Washington Post
“An excellent primer for anyone who needs the important facts of the last 150 years of American history–and how they got us to the sorry place we inhabit today.” –Guardian
At a time when the very foundations of American democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a road map for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy, tracing the roots of Donald Trump’s “authoritarian experiment” to the earliest days of the republic. She examines the historical forces that have led to the current political climate, showing how modern conservatism has preyed upon a disaffected population, weaponizing language and promoting false history to consolidate power.
With remarkable clarity and the same accessible voice that brings millions to her newsletter, Letters from an American, Richardson wrangles a chaotic news feed into a story that pivots effortlessly from the Founders to the abolitionists to Nixon to the January 6 insurrection. An essential read for anyone concerned about the state of America, Democracy Awakening is more than a history book; it’s a call to action. Richardson reminds us that democracy requires constant vigilance and participation from all of us, showing how we, as a nation, can take the lessons of the past to secure a more just and equitable future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this muddled survey, Boston College historian Richardson (To Make Men Free) analyzes the history of the United States from its origins through the present day, reframing many of the nation's major internal conflicts as part of an ongoing clash between "liberal democracy" and emerging "authoritarianism." Richardson touches briefly on such events as the Civil War, the political fight over the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, arguing that these were moments when authoritarianism was thwarted by defenders of democracy who drew political strength from the liberal Enlightenment-era principles in the country's founding documents. But according to Richardson, from the 1950s onward authoritarianism has been on the rise (she cites McCarthyism and the Reagan administration as big steps in that direction), culminating with the election of Donald Trump. At one point, Richardson acknowledges that her argument amounts to a relabeling of "conservativism" as "authoritarianism": She explains that political opponents of the New Deal, who rallied behind a document called "The Conservative Manifesto" in the 1930s, were misappropriating the label "conservative" (which should only be fairly used, Richardson asserts, as a term for people who oppose something "radical"—which, the reader is left to assume, the New Deal wasn't), and thus all political conservatives since have also been mislabeled. Meanwhile, she never convincingly justifies the use of the term "authoritarianism" to refer to, for example, political opponents of civil rights for African Americans. Readers will be perplexed.
