Description
Book SynopsisDonald Trump in Historical Perspective: Dead Precedentsis a collection ofchapters that utilizes the thinking of historians, philosophers, and political scientists to explore historical parallels to the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America.
This collection provides an extensive analysis on the ways Trump's impulsiveness, breaking of norms, and disregard for longstanding democratic pieties, caused him to represent a definitive end to the American century, an era when American self-confidence, steadiness, and leadership, even in the face of titanic challenges, were almost universally taken for granted. Yet this book also argues how in the longer sweep of history, Trump is a familiar figure in the turbulent life of democracies. These in-depthchaptersreveal the ways Trump represents the anti-institutionalist, the populist demagogue, the would-be authoritarian who exploits electoral and political vulnerabilities to gai
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: History's Rhymes, 2. Plutarch and the precedents for Dead Precedents, 3. The Politics of Anger: Donald Trump and Cleon of Athens, 4. Plato's Tyrannical Soul and Donald Trump's (In)authentic Leadership, 5. Politics as Theater: Trump and Machiavelli’s Political Actors, 6. Populism from Above: Donald Trump, Andrew Jackson, and the Politics of White Vengeance, 7. Idols of Consumption: From Mussolini to Trump, 8. Donald Trump, Mao Zedong and Religious Anti-Intellectualism, 9. From Dog Whistles to Fog Horns: Richard Nixon, Donald Trump, and Their Silent Majorities, 10. Conclusion: In the Twilight of Trump’s Idols
