New Books in Politics and Polemics

Is it possible that the consensus around what caused the 2008 Great Recession is almost entirely wrong? It's happened before. Just as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz led the economics community in the 1960s to reevaluate its view of what caused the Great Depression, the same may be happening now to our understanding of the first economic crisis of this century.Foregoing the usual relitigating of the problems of housing markets and banking crises, renowned monetary economist Scott Sumner argues that the Great Recession came down to one thing: nominal GDP, the sum of all nominal spending in the economy, which the Federal Reserve erred in allowing to plummet. The Money Illusion: Market Monetarism, the Great Recession, and the Future of Monetary Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2021) is an end-to-end case for this school of thought, known as market monetarism, written by its leading voice in economics. Based almost entirely on standard macroeconomic concepts, this highly accessible text lays a groundwork for a simple yet fundamentally radical understanding of how monetary policy can work best: providing a stable environment for a market economy to flourish.Scott Sumner is the Ralph G. Hawtrey Chair of Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is also Professor Emeritus at Bentley University and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute.Kirk Meighoo is Public Relations Officer for the United National Congress, the Official Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago. His career has spanned media, academia, and politics for three decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

The Hungarian Marxist philosopher George Lukács has long occupied a complicated place in the Marxist canon of thinkers, both his lived and theoretical practice subject to much critical commentary and debate. While History and Class Consciousness is considered to be a classic of critical sociology, it has also often been held at arms length by Marxists, many of whom find it’s use of Hegelian speculative philosophy unhelpful, while others find the overemphasis on praxis at the expense of other forms of life and inquiry reductive. In spite of these hesitations, the text has maintained a canonical status for a century now, leaving philosophers on the left with a difficult set of questions about how to read it and what to do with it.Stepping into this difficult terrain is Daniel Andres Lopez with his massive book Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute (Haymarket Books, 2020). Lopez’s work reconstructs Lukács’ thought of the 1920’s by putting it back into it’s tumultuous context, allowing us not only to get a close look at the theory, but it’s purpose in maintaining political, historical and philosophical clarity in a world filled with war, revolution and upheaval. Much like our current moment, Lukács occupied a time where everything seemed possible, but translating the infinite possibilities into concrete realities was a formidable challenge, and would require not only the courage to step into physical danger, but also political confusion. Nothing in this moment was guaranteed, so rigorous philosophical speculation was required, and Lukács stepped in to provide communists with a rigorous theoretical framework.However, this book goes well beyond simply reconstructing Lukács theoretical output. Rather than be satisfied with writing a straightforward commentary, this book is interested in wrestling with Lukács’ successes as well as his limitations. To that effect, Lopez works through a number of critiques of Lukács, both of others as well as his own. This allows him to explore various other questions on the margins of Lukács’ work about the relation between philosophical theory and political practice, and the role of critical thinking in emancipatory movements. The scope and rigor of the text, as well as the various questions and themes it addresses, will make this an incredible resource not just for newcomers to Lukács, or those seasoned in his thought, but for all those interested in learning how to think, and how to translate that thinking into action.Published as part of the Historical Materialism book series.Daniel Andres Lopez is an honorary research associate with the Thesis Eleven Forum for Social and Political Theory. His work has appeared in a number of places, including the journal Historical Materialism. He is an editor at Jacobin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Politics for the Love of Fandom: Fan-Based Citizenship in a Digital World (Louisiana State Press, 2019) examines what Ashley Hinck calls “fan-based citizenship”: civic action that blends with and arises from participation in fandom and commitment to a fan-object. Examining cases like Harry Potter fans fighting for fair trade, YouTube fans donating money to charity, and football fans volunteering to mentor local youth, Hinck argues that fan-based citizenship has created new civic practices wherein popular culture may play as large a role in generating social action as traditional political institutions such as the Democratic Party or the Catholic Church.Hinck considers the ways in which fan-based social engagement arises organically, from fan communities seeking to change their world as a group, as well as the methods creators use to leverage their fans to take social action. The modern shift to networked, fluid communities, Hinck argues, opens up opportunities for public participation that occurs outside of political parties, houses of worship, and organizations for social action.Politics for the Love of Fandom shows how fan-based citizenship performances help us understand the future possibilities of public engagement, as fans and creators alike tie the ethical frameworks of fan-objects to desired social goal, such as volunteering for political candidates, mentoring at-risk youth, and promoting environmentally friendly policy. Dr. Ashley Hinck (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Communication at Xavier University specializing in digital media, fandom, citizenship, social activism, rhetoric.Dr. Lee M. Pierce (they/them) is a rhetoric scholar and speech critic at SUNY Geneseo and host/ess of for New Books Network channels in Language and Media & Communications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

What’s a “progressive?” We hear constantly about the rift in the Democratic Party between its “progressive” wing and its “moderate” one. But what exactly was “Progressivism?” And why do we hear the word “progressive” but not much about “Progressivism?”The answer may lie in the fact that modern day progressive Democrats or those who ally with them (such as Bernie Sanders) don’t want to dwell on the fact that much of their political program descends from political leaders they now disown (such as Woodrow Wilson) or who were, at various times, Republicans (like Theodore Roosevelt).Additionally, progressives are probably not eager to be so openly opposed to the basic principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the U.S. Constitution as their political and intellectual forebears were because that might hurt their poll numbers among average Americans.Moreover, the progressives really do not need to embrace the idea of the rule of the elites and the need for an administrative state and to fight for those things because that is the world we live in thanks to the Progressive thinkers and leaders profiled in the 2021 book America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism by Ronald J. Pestritto.The book is must reading for everyone who wants to understand why unelected people such as the personnel of federal agencies, city managers, federal judges at many levels and so forth wield so much power and are so unanswerable to the bulk of the population.Pestritto reveals the dual legacy of Progressivism. To wit, via illuminating and meticulous examination of the writings and speeches of well-known figures such as Wilson and Roosevelt and lesser known but influential thinkers such as the theorists and academics Richard Ely, Frank Goodnow and James Landis, Pestritto documents how the Progressives disempowered average Americans even as those figures harped on the theme of accountability in government and dismissed the safeguards for individual liberty that the Constitution provides.Pestritto traces the intellectual incoherence of much of progressive thinking and policy c. 1880-1945 and demonstrates how the conflict between the oft-stated concern of the progressive left for the common man and the reality of bureaucratization has its roots in the Progressive Era and why so many Americans are frustrated by the fact that Congress has willingly signed over to the administrative state the right to write its own rules, to determine if those rules are fair and to implement those rules and regulations.It is not for nothing that Pestritto uses the word “transformed” given the curtailment of involvement by everyday Americans in their own governing processes that the Progressives ensured. A particular strength of his book is his exposure of the way that progressives from Wilson down to Obama and since have disingenuously claimed that Abraham Lincoln was a proto-progressive even though Lincoln was one of the most ardent, eloquent proponents of the Declaration of Independence and natural rights.We often hear from progressives that we need to be on the “right side of history.” In this valuable book, Ronald J. Pestritto explains to us the intellectual background of such platitudes. Give a listen.Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In The Better Angels of Our Nature Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argued that modern history has witnessed a dramatic decline in human violence of every kind, and that in the present we are experiencing the most peaceful time in human history. But what do top historians think about Pinker's reading of the past? Does his argument stand up to historical analysis?In Philip Dwyer and Mark Micale's book The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence (Bloomsbury, 2021), seventeen scholars of international stature evaluate Pinker's arguments and find them lacking. Studying the history of violence from Japan and Russia to Native America, Medieval England and the Imperial Middle East, these scholars debunk the myth of non-violent modernity. Asserting that the real story of human violence is richer, more interesting and incomparably more complex than Pinker's sweeping, simplified narrative, this book tests, and bests, 'fake history' with expert knowledge.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Today, journalists, legal professionals, activists, and artists challenge the state's monopoly on investigation and the production of narratives of truth. They probe corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes, and technological domination. Organisations such as WikiLeaks, Bellingcat, or Forensic Architecture pore over open-source videos and satellite imagery to undertake visual investigations. This combination of diverse fields is what Fuller and Weizman call 'investigative aesthetics': the mobilisation of sensibilities associated with art, architecture, and other such practices in order to challenge power.Investigative Aesthetics draws on theories of knowledge, ecology and technology; evaluates the methods of citizen counter-forensics, micro-history and art. These new practices take place in the studio and the laboratory, the courtroom and the gallery, online and in the streets, as they strive towards the construction of a new common sense.Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman speak to Pierre d'Alancaisez about the logics behind Forensic Architecture and the evidentiary turn: the aesthetics of distributed sensing, the investigative commons, and the condition of hyperaesthesia.Matthew Fuller is a Professor of Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Media Ecologies, and with Andrew Goffey, Evil Media.Eyal Weizman is the founder and director of Forensic Architecture and Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Hollow Land, The Least of All Possible Evils, and Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability. Forensic Architecture investigation archive. Investigation: The Bombing of Rafah, 2015 Investigation: The Killing of Mark Duggan, 2020 ICA London exhibiiton. Investigation: Triple-Chaser, 2019 Protests surrounding the Whitney Museum's trustee Warren Kanders' involvement with Safariland. Kanders divests from his arms production holdings. Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

One of the fifty most influential living philosophers, a “self-promoting charlatan” (Brian Leiter), and the orchestrator of an “online orgy of stupidity” (Ray Brassier). In Skirmishes: With Friends, Enemies, and Neutrals (Punctum Books, 2020), Graham Harman responds with flair and wit to some of his best-known critics and fellow travelers. Pulling no punches, Harman gives a masterclass in philosophical argumentation by dissecting, analyzing, and countering their criticism, be it from the Husserlian, Heideggerian, or Derridean corner. At the same time, Skirmishes provides an excellent introduction to the hottest debates in Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology, a speculative style of philosophy long foreclosed by the biases of mainstream continental thought, but which has turned in recent years into one of the most encompassing philosophies of our time, with a major impact on the arts, humanities, and architecture.Part One considers four prominent books on speculative realism. In dialogue with Tom Sparrow’s The End of Phenomenology, Harman expresses agreement with Sparrow’s critique while taking issue with Lee Braver’s “transgressive realism” as not realist enough. Turning to Steven Shaviro’s The Universe of Things, Harman defends his own object-oriented model against Shaviro’s brand of process philosophy, while also engaging in side-debate with Levi R. Bryant’s distinction between virtual proper being and local manifestations. In the third chapter, on Peter Gratton’s Speculative Realism: Problems and Prospects, Harman opposes the author’s attempt to use Derridean notions of time and difference against Speculative Realism, in what amounts to his most extensive engagement with Derrida to date. Chapter Four gives us Harman’s response to Peter Wolfendale’s massive polemic in Object-Oriented Philosophy, which he shows is based on a failed criticism of Harman’s reading of Heidegger and a grumpy commitment to rationalist kitsch.Part Two responds to a series of briefer criticisms of object-oriented ontology. When Alberto Toscano accuses Harman and Bruno Latour of “neo-monadological” and anti-scientific thinking, Harman responds that the philosophical factors pushing Leibniz into monadology are still valid today. When Christopher Norris mocks Harman for seeing merit in the occasionalist school, he shows why Norris’s middle-of-the-road scientific realism misses the point. In response to Dan Zahavi’s contention that phenomenology has little to learn from speculative realism, Harman exposes the holes in Zahavi’s reasoning. In a final response, Harman gives a point-by-point answer to Stephen Mulhall’s critical foray in the London Review of Books. Amidst these lively debates, Harman sheds new light on what he regards as the central bias of philosophical modernism, which he terms the taxonomical standpoint. It is a book sure to provoke lively controversy among both friends and foes of object-oriented thought.Adam Bobeck is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. His PhD is entitled “Object-Oriented Azadari: Shi’i Muslim Rituals and Ontology”. For more about his work, see www.adambobeck.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

It's time to rethink how we create and allocate moneyIn Outgrowing Capitalism: Rethinking Money to Reshape Society and Pursue Purpose (Fast Company Press, 2021), Marco Dondi sheds light on the fact that most people do not have the economic security to focus on purpose and life fulfillment. He proposes that this is not the way things have to be; there is an alternative. In a quest to change our economic system to cater for everyone, he identifies deep issues in how money is created and allocated and connects these to capitalism. He shows that the assumptions and circumstances that made capitalism a success are no longer true today and then describes a new socio-economic model, Monetism. Dondi's solution is to provide a pragmatic roadmap to institutionalize Monetism and solve societal issues that seemed as permanent as time.Kirk Meighoo is Public Relations Officer for the United National Congress, the Official Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago. His career has spanned media, academia, and politics for three decades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

With Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves (Manchester UP, 2020) Peter Mitchell offers a “history of the present”. That is to say, it is not a narrative of how we got to where we are, but rather a sustained reflection on how history shapes and interacts with our current world. Mitchell also engages the uses history for contemporary political purposes. Mitchell argues that memories of empire are at the root almost every aspect of Britain’s culture wars. From battles over statues to skirmishes within hallowed Oxbridge halls he argues that imperial nostalgia infects British politics.Dr. Mitchell earned his doctorate at Queen Mary, University of London in 2014. His dissertation was on the India Office records and the historiography of the early modern British Empire. In addition to Imperial Nostalgia, he is the co-author of Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilization and Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century British Empire with Alan Lester and Kate Boehme also with Cambridge University Press, 2021. Peter Mitchell is currently an Oral History and Public Engagement Officer with the University of Manchester working on “NHS: Voices of Covid-19” (funded by the AHRC and in partnership with the British Library Oral History Archive).Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In The Dawn of Redemption: Ethics and Tradition in a Time of Power (Evrit, 2021), Mikhael Manekin argues that modern Jewish nationalism--widespread today among secular as well as religious Israeli-Jews--is incompatible with traditional Jewish ethics. Manekin, an Orthodox religious Jew and anti-Occupation activist, draws on traditional texts, as well as his own family history, in an attempt to reconcile a religious ethical system created in the diaspora with the political reality of a modern nation state. He argues that Jewish ethics, grounded in a long-time religious-tradition, can fuel and guide critically minded, politically engaged citizens. Specifically, Manekin argues that the Jewish tradition denounces the desire for power and control, as well as ideologies of ethnic superiority and political subjugation.Mikhael Manekin is the director of the Alliance Fellowship program, a network of Arab and Jewish progressive leaders in Israel. Before running the Alliance, Mikhael served as the director of Molad- a non-partisan progressive think tank in Jerusalem focused on democratic change in Israel. Prior to that, Mikhael was the executive director of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans’ group focused on educating the public as to the results of military control of the West Bank and Gaza. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Yael, and their children Ruth Sarai and Noach.Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics