America Last

The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators

By: Jacob Heilbrunn

Narrated by: Kent Klineman

In America Last, Jacob Heilbrunn, a highly respected observer of the American Right, demonstrates that the infatuation of American conservatives with foreign dictators is not a new phenomenon.

It dates to WWI, when some conservatives, enthralled with Kaiser Wilhelm II, openly rooted for him to defeat the forces of democracy. In the 1920s and 1930s, this affinity became even more pronounced as Hitler and Mussolini attracted a variety of American admirers. Throughout the Cold War, the Right evinced a fondness for autocrats such as Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet, while some conservatives wrote apologias for the Third Reich and for apartheid South Africa. The habit of mind is not really about foreign policy, however. As Heilbrunn argues, the Right is drawn to what it perceives as the impressive strength of foreign dictators, precisely because it sees them as models of how to fight against liberalism and progressivism domestically.

America Last is a guide for the perplexed, identifying and tracing a persuasion—or the "illiberal imagination"—that has animated conservative politics for a century now. Since the 1940s, the Right has railed against communist fellow travelers in America. Heilbrunn finally corrects the record, showing that dictator worship is a longstanding tradition within modern American conservatism that cannot be ignored—and what it means for us today.

©2024 Jacob Heilbrunn (P)2024 Tantor

The History the American Right Hopes You’ll Forget

Incredible parallels highlighted in this book between the rhetoric of the past and present.

The consistency with the American right wing’s advocacy of the most obviously immoral actors while posturing as the owner of the moral high ground at any given point in time is evergreen and egregious.

Extremely important read for anyone tired of the modern right gaslighting with historical revisionism.

Powerful historical political commentary

This book answered many questions about how the current MAGA beliefs which seem to negate the ideological underpinnings of the American Constitution.
This is TRULY a “must read.” The narrator has a reading style that is modulated in a distracting way and is the book’s only downside.

Halting reading is hard to stand

I’m very interested in the topic, but the reading is very halting. It’s like they recorded every word then stitched it together. Audio is difficult to listen to for long.

Bad narration

The bad narration made it very difficult to listen to - I would be so focused on the LONG pauses and halting delivery that it would be difficult to follow the contents of the book.

Excellent history

American history is the best kept secret in our society. Leaning towards fascism has been woven into our political leadership since the late 19th century. It’s still alive and festering today.