How Fascism Works cover art

How Fascism Works

The Politics of Us and Them

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

How Fascism Works

By: Jason Stanley
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “No single book is as relevant to the present moment.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

“With unsettling insight and disturbing clarity, How Fascism Works is an essential guidebook to our current national dilemma of democracy vs. authoritarianism.”—Jelani Cobb, New Yorker staff writer

A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history.

As a scholar of philosophy and propaganda and the child of refugees of WWII Europe, Jason Stanley has long understood that democratic societies, including the United States, can be vulnerable to fascism. In How Fascism Works, he identifies ten pillars of fascist politics—an appeal to the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, favoring “the heartland,” and a dismantling of public goods and unions—that amount to an urgent diagnosis of the tactics right-wing politicians use to break down democracies and a critical lens on the current moment.

Stanley knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations, making clear the immense dangers of language and beliefs that separate people into an “us” and a “them.” By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics—rhetoric and myth—can become policy and reality all too quickly. Only by recognizing them, he argues, can we begin to resist their most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals. 20th Century Modern Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences Crime Social justice Liberalism Socialism Capitalism Thought-Provoking Interwar Period Refugee War Imperialism American Politics

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Unjust cover art
The Anatomy of Fascism cover art
The Origins of Totalitarianism cover art
How Propaganda Works cover art
The Plot to Change America cover art
Speechless cover art
The Big Lie cover art
The Enemy at Home cover art
American Exceptionalism and American Innocence cover art
To Shape a New World cover art
Abolish the Monarchy cover art
Trump Studies: An Intellectual Guide to Why Citizens Vote Against Their Interests cover art
Antifascism cover art
Intellectuals and Society cover art
American Marxism cover art
Understanding Power cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Easy and accessible about the core trends of fascism, with pointers to both history and contemporary politics. Great as an introductory overview of what fascism is, and why it appeals and grows among the population. A warning for us today.

Excellent summary of core features of fascism

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
informative and useful, easy chapters dealing each with separate elements of fascist politics.
using modern and historical examples.

listened to twice

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Another brilliantly written book that was difficult to read because of the state of the world right now. It is hard not to compare the points made in this book with the actions being taken currently by Trump and other Right leaning Western leaders. A very sad time. The predictions in the Epilogue were very well expressed and it’s incredibly sad that they already appear to be coming to fruition.

How Fascism Works

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Regardless of your political leanings, this is a must read to appreciate the manners in which Fascism manipulates your perception of history, reality, and the future.

Read this to have insight into modern politics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
We'll worth a read/listen. It has a lot to say about politics in the modern era which allowed for a deeper understanding of subject matter.

Read them now.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews