Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOf wide scope, encompassing a range of views, given the potentially divisive subject matter, it still manages to be challenging while not offending. * M. P. Ross, Applied Political Theory *
The power of ideology has become one of the great issues of our day, driving trends in politics, journalism, academia, even science. In this superb and invaluable book, Azar Gat explains both ideology and ideologies: the systems of ideas that have shaped history and continue to shape our world. And no, he is not ideological, but thoroughly erudite, insightful, and judicious * Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of Enlightenment Now and Rationality *
Azar Gat addresses head-on the single most remarkable phenomenon of our time: the return of the wars of religion in everyday political life, whereby adversaries are viewed as embodiments of absolute evil who must be utterly silenced as Catholics and Lutherans once did to each other. In Europe, political parties proliferate to vent incompatible views, in the US rival media ignore each others' news. What many others deplore, Azar Gat explains, bringing much needed clarity * Edward N Luttwak, author of Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace *
The title doesn't do this book justice. A brilliant vademecum, it traverses 2,500 years of philosophy, political theory and ideology-all those Great Books in one. Subtly and gently, Gat demolishes the ideological verities of our day- postmodernism, 'wokeism', and all. 'Dare to know', as Kant had it: question, gainsay, and don't confuse ideology with truth. When in doubt, go with the Enlightenment * Josef Joffe, Johns Hopkins and Stanford University *
Table of ContentsPreface A. Groundwork Chapter 1: What Is True? (Though Never the Whole Truth) Chapter 2: What Is Right? How Morality Should be Conceived B. The Classical Ideologies Chapter 3: Religious Ideological Fixation - Examined by a Non-Hostile Atheist Chapter 4: The Major Contenders of Modernity: Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism C. Current Debates and Fixations in the Democracies Chapter 5: The West's Guilt towards the 'Rest' Chapter 6: Nature or Nurture? - Nations and Nationhood Chapter 7: Nature or Nurture? - Gender and Sexual Behavior Chapter 8: Can anything be Done? Some Very Tentative Reflections on Current Ideological Battlefields Chapter 9: Conclusion: Ideological Fixation - Now and Ever References Index
