Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook7 hours
Terror and Liberalism
Written by Paul Berman
Narrated by Scott Brick
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
In New York Times-bestselling author Paul Berman's opinion, terrorism does not represent a paradigm shift in human thought; rather, it represents a return to the kind of totalitarian thinking that ravaged the European continent during most of the 20th century. Berman shows how a genuine religious inspiration can be turned into murderous terrorism, and offers insights into how Islamic radicalism mirrors some all-too-familiar episodes in America and Europe. He condemns the foreign policy "realism" of the right and diagnoses the naiveté of the political left. Finally, he calls for a "new radicalism" and "liberal American interventionism to promote democratic values throughout the world"-a vigorous new policy of American liberalism. Drawing from the history and philosophy of religion and politics, Berman is a peerless interpreter of today's events.
"Mr. Berman is a wonderfully lucid presenter and analyzer of recent intellectual history."-The New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Berman is a wonderfully lucid presenter and analyzer of recent intellectual history."-The New York Times Book Review
Unavailable
Related to Terror and Liberalism
Related audiobooks
Racism: A Short History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReturn of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture in Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Coming of the Third Reich Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paranoid Style in American Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Hitler's Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVirtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Third Reich in Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nazism and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Habermas: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ask the Question: Why We Must Demand Religious Clarity from Our Presidential Candidates Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Spectre, Haunting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Plots Against Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Children: Sons and Daughters of Third Reich Leaders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Theodor Adorno: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Romance of American Communism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Camus at Combat: Writing 1944-1947 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cold War Exiles and the CIA: Plotting to Free Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Anthropology For You
The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civilized To Death: The Price of Progress Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cult Trip Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neuroplasticity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World's Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Myth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad-and Surprising Good-About Feeling Special Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We Love: The New Science Behind Our Closest Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Terror and Liberalism
Rating: 3.603769056603774 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
53 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Berman does a wonderful job of describing the continuum of thought from the romantic nihilists of the 19th century through both right and left totalitarian states in the 20th to the thoughts of Sayiid Qutb, the hugely influential Koranic scholar. Of particular note, Berman tracked down several volumes of the English translation of Qutb's "In the shadow of the Koran", a key interpretation of the Koran applied to 20th century society. But being a dedicated man of the left, Berman is afflicted with the same tics that he notes in other left-liberals: loathing of the Nixonian-Kissengerian realpolitic (which position I agree with) but holding grudges against any Republican who had any contact with the Nixon administration as being hopelessly and permanenty contaminated. This monomania is illustrated in the last chapter where Berman notes that George W Bush deviated strongly from the realpolitic script, pursuing many of the goals of traditional left-liberals but _cannot_ get away from the fact that many of W's senior staff served in one post or another during the Nixon years. Berman also persists in equating the pseudo-fascist Baath with the jihadis to try and hang Islamist notions on the Right. Lee Harris' "The Death of Reason" has much better insight into "Why do they hate us?" than Berman.Berman can't bring himself to admit the utility of force, employing a transparent revisionism to nominate the soft left as the proper agents to change the minds of those who hate us, not recognizing the real Kulturkampf between the Islamists and the liberal West.Of less importance is Berman's revisionist history of the left-liberals in the 1950s and his inability to credit military power with any utility either during the Cold War of during the current conflict. Berman is so in love with soft power that he cannot accept the strength of the religio-cultural Islamist project against attempts at cooption and "reform" coming from the West.