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Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope.
Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself.
Read an excerpt from the Evil Geniuses Introduction.
Listen to an excerpt from Chapter 1 "Land of the New" (and buy the audio book):
Read -- and listen to -- a sample from Chapter 21, "The Politics of Nostalgia and Stagnation”
Read this excerpt created for The Atlantic, "I Was a Useful Idiot for Capitalism"
INSTANT New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and Publishers Weekly bestseller!
A few books that informed Evil Geniuses and Fantasyland >
Highbrow brilliant on the New York Magazine approval matrix:
Press & Appearances
Listen
KPFK's Background Briefing with Ian Masters
WAMC’s The Book Show with Joe Donahue
Connecticut Public Radio's The Colin McEnroe Show
Departures with Robert Amsterdam
NPR station WDET's Detroit Today with Steven Henderson (Kurt at 25:25)
Slate’s The Gist with Mike Pesca
LitHub’s Keen On with Andrew Keen
The Majority Report with Sam Seder
The Daily Beast's The New Abnormal w/ Molly Jong-Fast & Rick Wilson
The New York Times Book Review with Pamela Paul
WBUR’s Open Source with Christopher Lyndon
Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter
Watch
Evil Geniuses Week on Morning Joe