The Reactionary Spirit cover art

The Reactionary Spirit

How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World

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The Reactionary Spirit

By: Zack Beauchamp
Narrated by: Justin Price
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About this listen

With keen insight, Vox journalist Zack Beauchamp traces how a reactionary antidemocratic ethos born and bred in America has come to infect democracies around the world.

There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of American politics that has endured since our nation’s birth. In The Reactionary Spirit, Zack Beauchamp explains what he calls the reactionary spirit: as strides towards true democracy are made, there is always a faction that reacts by seeking to undermine them and thereby resist change.

Brilliantly combining political history and reportage, Beauchamp reveals how the United States was the birthplace of this strange and harrowing authoritarian style, and why we’re now seeing its evolution in diverse nations including Hungary, Israel, and India.

The Reactionary Spirit paints a vivid, alarming picture that illuminates not only what’s happening to democracy globally, but also what we must do to protect it—while we still can.
Civics & Citizenship Political Science Politics & Government Socialism Capitalism Social justice Democrat Middle East Latin American Liberalism

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