The Dying Citizen

How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America

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The Dying Citizen

By: Victor Davis Hanson

Narrated by: James Edward Thomas

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About this listen

The New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Trump explains the decline and fall of the once cherished idea of American citizenship.

Human history is full of the stories of peasants, subjects, and tribes. Yet the concept of the “citizen” is historically rare—and was among America’s most valued ideals for over two centuries. But without shock treatment, warns historian Victor Davis Hanson, American citizenship as we have known it may soon vanish.

In The Dying Citizen, Hanson outlines the historical forces that led to this crisis. The evisceration of the middle class over the last fifty years has made many Americans dependent on the federal government. Open borders have undermined the idea of allegiance to a particular place. Identity politics have eradicated our collective civic sense of self. And a top-heavy administrative state has endangered personal liberty, along with formal efforts to weaken the Constitution.

As in the revolutionary years of 1848, 1917, and 1968, 2020 ripped away our complacency about the future. But in the aftermath, we as Americans can rebuild and recover what we have lost. The choice is ours.

Victor Davis HansonJames Edward ThomasBasic Books

Civics & Citizenship

Politics & Government

United States

World

Socialism

Civics & Citizenship Politics & Government United States World Socialism

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Critic reviews

“Mr. Hanson, an accomplished classicist and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is one of the great amalgamators of American political writing. He has a particular gift for bringing together a dizzying array of events, controversies and ideas and making sense of them by advancing a coherent argument that incorporates thousands of years of history… Mr. Hanson hits hard, but I don’t find his analysis unfair or partisan. There is enormous value, moreover, in thinking about toxic political developments not as problems of the moment but as destructive pathologies to which all societies are prone at all times.”—Wall Street Journal

“Indispensable… Hanson’s immensely erudite and inspiriting book offers a most welcome corrective to those influential forces and doctrines in our midst that conspire to delegitimize the citizen and citizenship as such. In doing so, he provides us with hope that our society still has within it significant powers of rejuvenation.”—National Review

“As Victor Davis Hanson shows in his learned, powerful, and troubling new book, The Dying Citizen, the steady devolution of citizenship speaks volumes about where we are today and where we seem to be heading… Hanson lays out this grim diagnosis with his usual clarity and brilliance, moving easily from his deep specialized knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman world through savvy observations about present-day politics and American society.”—The New Criterion

“A powerful and carefully developed argument for preserving American citizenship.”—American Thinker

“Required reading for all those who seriously want to engage in the fieriest issues of our days at their most thoughtful levels of depth.”—Epoch Times

“Hanson is well-positioned to describe the evolution of citizenship from ancient times through the modern era, and especially the assumptions about citizenship underlying America's constitutional order… Hanson presents, clearly and concisely, a case that critics will struggle to refute. His troubling argument has far-reaching implications. The Dying Citizen is a book that all Americans should read, then discuss with friends and neighbors.”—Claremont Review of Books

“Among public intellectuals writing within a secular framework about America’s troubles, Victor Davis Hanson towers above the rest.”—First Things

“The Dying Citizen is essential reading for any American who cares about the fate of our nation.”—Mark R. Levin

Most relevant

I wouldn’t say a book like this is good as it’s contents can be unsettling. However, there are things I would say in the current climate of the U.S. that seem off to me, and Hanson delivers a well made argument based upon history and current events of movements that seem to be changing the fabric of the country. He places his finger on points that make me think