Social Democracy

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.

At the end of the 20th century, many believed the story of European political development had come to an end. Modern democracy began in Europe, but for hundreds of years it competed with various forms of dictatorship. Now, though, the entire continent was in the democratic camp for the first time in history. But within a decade, this story had already begun to unravel. Some of the continent's newer democracies slid back towards dictatorship, while citizens in many of its older democracies began questioning democracy's functioning and even its legitimacy.

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...

Part memoir, part history, part political manifesto, Seeking Social Democracy offers the first full-length treatment of Ed Broadbent's ideas and remarkable seven-decade engagement in public life. In dialogue with three collaborators from different generations, Broadbent leads listeners through a life spent fighting for equality in Parliament and beyond: exploring the formation of his social democratic ideals, his engagement on the international stage, and his relationships with historical figures from Pierre Trudeau and Fidel Castro to Tommy Douglas, Rene Levesque, and Willy Brandt.

This sweeping book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from limited monarchy to unlimited democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy, with all its failings, is a lesser evil than mass democracy but outlines deficiencies in both as systems of guarding liberty.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A searing portrait and damning takedown of America’s proudest citizens—who are also the least likely to defend its core principles “This is an important book that ought to be read by anyone who wants to understand politics in the perilous Age of Trump...

An immediate sensation when it was first published in two volumes in 1945, Popper's monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right and is credited with inspiring anticommunist dissidents during the Cold War. Arguing that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics, Popper traces the roots of an opposite, authoritarian tendency to a tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel.

With the threat of the Third Reich looming, Eleanor Roosevelt employs the history of human rights to establish the idea that at the core of democracy is a spiritual responsibility to other citizens. Roosevelt then calls on all Americans, especially the youth, to prioritize the well-being of others and have faith that their fellow citizens will protect them in return. She defines this trust between people as a trait of true democracy. Roosevelt advances an optimistic model for the democracy of the future, and although we've taken some steps in the direction of her vision, it's still a long way from reality.

In this challenging work, Christopher Lasch makes an accessible critique of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites. The distinguished historian argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, as Jose Ortega y Gasset ( The Revolt of the Masses) had said, but by the elites. These elites - mobile and increasingly global in outlook - refuse to accept limits or ties to nation and place.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The urgent and influential guide to the forces that have undermined democracies across the globe—forces running rampant in the United States today—hailed as “a touchstone” (The New Yorker) that “comes at exactly the right moment” (The Washington Post)...

Hull House was visited each week by around 2000 people. Her adult night school was a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many universities today. In this book, Jane Addams reflects on labor, discrimination, welfare, education, and the role of democracy and government in relation to improving the lives of society's less fortunate.

Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of the feckless politicians of the Weimar Republic show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer." —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward...

250 years after the US Declaration of Independence, this incisive Declaration of Interdependence is a timely, tender, and transformative guide for citizens who care deeply about the world but feel disillusioned by the state of public discourse. Professor Jeremy David Engels—scholar, mindfulness teacher, and longtime student of Thich Nhat Hanh—proposes that clarity and interconnection are not only paths to personal peace, but vital practices for renewing democracy itself.

According to The New York Times, Noam Chomsky is "arguably the most important intellectual alive." But he isn't easy to read...or at least he wasn't until these books came along. Made up of intensively edited speeches and interviews, they offer something not found anywhere else: pure Chomsky, with every dazzling idea and penetrating insight intact, delivered in clear, accessible, listener-friendly prose.

Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.

In this advisedly optimistic book, Rewiring Democracy, security technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan Sanders cut through the AI hype and examine the myriad ways that AI is transforming every aspect of democracy—for both good and ill. The authors describe how the sophistication of AI will fulfill demands from lawmakers for more complex legislation, reducing deference to the executive branch and altering the balance of power between lawmakers and administrators

Greed. Lies. Corruption. These are the foundational elements of the American Mafia story. Here, the pursuit of power overshadows even the desire for a dollar, and self-interest outweighs the greater good. It’s a world that’s foreign to the average American—or is it? The values of our democracy and those of Mafia culture are separated by a thin line that’s quickly disintegrating.

One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech—hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence—on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of Our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast—including Hillary Clinton, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mark Warner, Cass Sunstein, and others—to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context.

What gives governments the right to rule, and why should citizens obey the law? Social Contract Theory Explained: A Complete Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Political Philosophy provides a clear, accessible, and in-depth exploration of one of history’s most powerful ideas. From Hobbes’ argument for absolute authority, to Locke’s defense of natural rights, to Rousseau’s vision of the general will, this book traces the evolution of social contract theory and shows how it has shaped revolutions, democracies, and modern debates about justice. Written for students, lifelong ...