Erasing History

By: Jason Stanley

Narrated by: Dion Graham

“I’ve never read a book that is as timely, urgent and essential as this one. A battle plan for keeping this nation from falling into fascism.”—Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness

From the bestselling author of How Fascism Works, a searing confrontation with the far right’s efforts to rewrite history and undo a century of progress on race, gender, sexuality, and class.

The human race finds itself again under threat of a rising global fascist movement. In the United States, democracy is under attack by an authoritarian movement that has found fertile ground among the country’s conservative politicians and voters, but similar movements have found homes in the hearts and minds of people all across the globe. To understand the shape, form, and stakes of this assault, we must go back to extract lessons from our past.

Democracy requires a common understanding of reality, a shared view of what has happened, that informs ordinary citizens’ decisions about what should happen, now and in the future. Authoritarians target this shared understanding, seeking to separate us from our own history to destroy our self-understanding and leave us unmoored, resentful, and confused. By setting us against each other, authoritarians represent themselves as the sole solution.

In authoritarian countries, critical examination of those nations’ history and traditions is discouraged if not an outright danger to those who do it. And it is no accident that local and global institutions of education have become a battleground, the authoritarian right’s tip of the spear, where learning and efforts to upend a hierarchal status quo can be put to end by coercion and threats of violence. Democracies entrust schools and universities to preserve a common memory of positive change, generated by protests, social movements, and rebellions. The authoritarian right must erase this history, and, along with it, the very practice of critical inquiry that has so often been the engine of future progress.

In Erasing History, Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the authoritarian right’s attacks on education, identifies their key tactics and funders, and traces their intellectual roots. He illustrates how fears of a fascist future have metastasized, from hypothetical threat to present reality. And he shows that hearts and minds are won in our schools and universities—places, he explains, that democratic societies across the world are now ill-prepared to defend against the fascist assault currently underway.

Deeply informed and urgently needed, Erasing History is a global call to action for those who wish to preserve democracy—in America and abroad—before it is too late.

©2024 Jason Stanley (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

A Must Read.

This is a road too often traveled and the US is blindly driving over the speed limit.

Great history lessons

Best lessons that we are in our own racist mes right now because we are a democracy. we've gone thru this before and if we fight and and stay vigilant we will overcome again and hopefully better than before.

Current and important analysis

This scholarly and very accessible analysis of current political trends carefully includes data from all over the world and through important times in human endeavor. Very important read/ listen.

Sounds to familiar for words.

It gave me a clear picture of what the intention is in current American administration.

Easy read with lots of information

For a book that takes less than 5 hours to enjoy, there's a lot of solid information that's presented clearly (with citations). A must-read for people trying to understand what's going on in the USA today.

The systematic erasure of history as a tool for dominance

See the above comments please that summarise my impression of the book. I like the fact that it’s short.

A important book

Jason Stanley’s clear vision of how and why authoritarianism is rising should be required reading in all high schools.

statered banger

thought it was all over the place but I understood what it was getting across well

Right for this time

This book is exceptional in explaining how and why we see the current state of erasure in America.

It's time to RISE UP before we are Gaza.

Excellent

Jason Stanley did an outstanding job defining and explaining the reasoning behind erasing history. He explained how it is a method that unsavory actors use to not only elevate their positions, but to justify them. He encourage you understand why it's important to take action when you notice that it is happening because such seemingly small acts in some case can have terrible and lasting consequences on peoples and societies.