
Liberalism and Its Discontents
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Ragland
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By:
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Francis Fukuyama
About this listen
An audiobook about the challenges to liberalism from the right and the left by the bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order.
Classical liberalism is in a state of crisis. Developed in the wake of Europe’s wars over religion and nationalism, liberalism is a system for governing diverse societies, which is grounded in fundamental principles of equality and the rule of law. It emphasizes the rights of individuals to pursue their own forms of happiness free from encroachment by government.
It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and an increasing peril to our democracy.
In this clear account of our current political discontents, Fukuyama offers an essential defense of a revitalized liberalism for the twenty-first century.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
©2022 Francis Fukuyama (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
For anyone interested in foreign affairs, this book will catalyze debate, and not only for Mr. Huntington's concluding scenario for World War III. He sees how this could happen if the U.S. mishandles an increasingly xenophobic and truculent China. Chinese assertiveness, Huntington argues, rises out of its felt grievances against a relatively weakening West. After China, the gravest challenge to the West is resurgent Islamic identity.
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The Most Important Book You'll Read This Year
- By Donald on 10-21-04
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The Great Delusion
- Liberal Dreams and International Realities
- By: John J. Mearsheimer
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.
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Dense, fact filled, sober analysis and prescription
- By John Brynjolfsson on 12-15-18
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Gettysburg
- By: Stephen W. Sears
- Narrated by: Jaime Renell
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
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The greatest of all Civil War campaigns, Gettysburg was the turning point of the turning point in our nation’s history. Volumes have been written about this momentous three-day battle, but recent histories have tended to focus on the particulars rather than the big picture: on the generals or on single days of battle—even on single charges—or on the daily lives of the soldiers. In Gettysburg Sears tells the whole story in a single volume.
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A Fresh Analysis of The Most Examined Battle in US History
- By Dana D. on 07-30-24
By: Stephen W. Sears
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How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement
- By: Fredrik deBoer
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2020, while the COVID-19 pandemic raged, the US was hit by a ripple of political discontent the likes of which had not been seen since the 1960s. The spark was the viral video of the horrific police murder of an unarmed Black man. The killing of George Floyd galvanized a nation already reeling from COVID and a toxic political cycle. Tens of thousands poured into the streets to protest. The entire country suddenly seemed to be roaring for change in one voice. Then nothing much happened. Fredrik deBoer explores why these passionate movements failed and how they could succeed in the future.
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Short and not so sweet
- By Amanda Venegas on 09-08-23
By: Fredrik deBoer
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The Square and the Tower
- Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Elliot Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It's about states, armies, and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
- By David on 02-05-18
By: Niall Ferguson
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Bloodlands
- Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
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a warning for the future
- By judith on 11-06-19
By: Timothy Snyder
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How States Think
- The Rationality of Foreign Policy
- By: John J. Mearsheimer, Sebastian Rosato
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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To understand world politics, you need to understand how states think. Are states rational? Much of international relations theory assumes that they are. But many scholars believe that political leaders rarely act rationally. The issue is crucial for both the study and practice of international politics. John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato argue that rational decisions in international politics rest on credible theories about how the world works and emerge from deliberative decision‑making processes.
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2hours of content crammed into 8 hours of listening
- By Al from Virginia on 02-04-24
By: John J. Mearsheimer, and others
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Empire of Illusion
- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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We now live in two Americas. One - now the minority - functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other - the majority - is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority - which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected-presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade level. In this "other America", serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
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A superficial tirade
- By Diueine Monteiro on 04-24-18
By: Chris Hedges
What listeners say about Liberalism and Its Discontents
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- XiaoHu
- 05-21-22
A defense of liberalism
The author defends liberal traditions believed to be the human destiny in his "The End of History and the Last Man" published 30 years ago in 1992 at the eve of collapse of the Soviet empire. It lays out a strong argument of liberalism against the attack from the far right-- mainly Neoliberalism on economics, white nationalists on politics, and Evangelical conservatives on culture. It also presents a critique on the critical theory that has served as the intellectual foundation for identity politics of the progressive left challenging the liberal order's failures to protect equality. Though the threats to liberal democracies are from both the far right and extreme left, the threats from the former are clearly more immediate and direct. An example is Trump's and his hard-core nationalism followers' challenge of the very heart of the liberal principles of equality, diversity, and tolerance. The book is full of information and references, useful for both students of politics and the general audience. The title emulates Sigmund Freud's classics "Civilization and Its Discontents".
The idea in the book that Eastern spirituality, tied by the author to the movement of individual actualization in the west, somehow contributes to extremity of self identity is misunderstanding if not completely nonsense. Cultivating consciousness in the eastern philosophical tradition is for achieving a non-self (no Ego) which, to a large extent, can contribute to collectiveness and public spirit.
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- Bill
- 08-31-22
Reading to think
One reason I read is to stimulate my thinking. Deeper is good. Broader is good. A different “lens” is good. Having listened to what Fukuyama has to say on liberalism, I am encouraged to buy the hard copy of his book and to encourage my grown sons to read it so I can obtain their reactions and conclusions and to refine my own.
This is an excellent book. Thoughtful and accessible.
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- Dimitrios
- 12-20-22
A little biased but good in general
A little biased but not much for the day we live in. Unfortunately a classical liberal is hard to find nowadays
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-25-22
An important voice at the table...
Fukuyama articulates and correlates each of the big, over-arching intersections where political conflicts are occuring in the U.S. He does so by revisiting the founding tenets of liberalism while staying dispassionate and clearly apart from any theory, in particular dialogues around critical theories, that in his estimation are too conditional, group-focused, and exacting in their causal analyses to have any import what-so-ever to adequately address the broader global effects of neo-liberal philosophy. This, in my humble assessment, ultimately is Fukuyama's myopia as he dismisses these out-group proposals as little more than "critical stories" better suited for the individual to seek repair through litigation than serious socio-economic group/class critique. With such considerations dismissed, he is freed to offer a set of ideas for how these conflicts could be addressed or at the least attenuated if our increasingly polarized and self-centered aspirations are not moored to some common cultural and political anchor. This is a necessary and important analysis, that over time, would ultimately be required to acknowledge its own patriarchal underpinning and not ignore the perspectives provided by the same passionate proponents of critical theory who have been traditionally marginalized and excluded from this discussion of a shared "commons,".
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- Andrew
- 03-31-23
Unbiased. Pragmatic. Necessary.
This is a fantastic framing of the current global political landscape of the Western world. What I came away with was not just how important it is to strike a better balance through policy, but what that rebalancing act would involve. Fantastic book!
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- DMax
- 09-29-22
For those who haven’t given up yet.
Important and timely, the author offers critical correctives to the unhinged extremes of the political Left and Right. Offers the rest of us with the patriotic, economic, historical, and philosophical underpinnings to support the Classical Liberal project, and invites us to reinforce the freedoms and responsibilities inherent thereto.
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- Experienced Buyer
- 09-16-23
Intellectually Honest
This book aims at deconstructing and criticizing radical views from the left and right. He seems to redefine classic liberalism as a much more calibrated version of what is generally perceived (e.g. Neoliberalism).
Not a book that will bring crowds to the street on passionate support of Fukuyama's ideology; but one that should!
Radically centrist and intellectually calibrated.
This book definitively deserves to be read by anyone who want to understand the polarized world we live in today.
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- Vaghenag
- 03-23-25
Detailed discussion
One time listening not enough
The author could have used simpler language, and
Used examples from history
Looks like this book is addressed to academicians
I am not one of them
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- Dena L. Wiederkehr
- 04-18-23
Another fantastic work
Dr. Fukuyama remains one our most important political scholars and thinkers. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants a nonpartisan view of modern politics.
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- Kindle Customer
- 11-05-24
Left me on the fence about it
I'm definitely going to have to listen to this the second time and, maybe, parts of it a third time. I doubt that I'll ever completely understand his section on the philosophical roots of liberalism; there are just too many of the people whose ideas he's discussing that I just don't know anything about.
In the first half I also felt that it was too polemical for me. But I hung in there, and he did get to the problems and alternatives that balanced things out, leaving me with much to think about.
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