The Death of the Left Audiobook By Simon Winlow, Steve Hall cover art

The Death of the Left

Why We Must Begin from the Beginning Again

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Death of the Left

By: Simon Winlow, Steve Hall
Narrated by: Jane Holman
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.95

Buy for $24.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

The left is dead. Its ailments cannot be cured. The only way to resurrect what was once valuable in leftist politics is to declare the left dead and begin from the beginning again. Winlow and Hall identify the root causes of its maladies, describe how new cultural obsessions displaced core unifying principles and explore the yawning chasm that now separates the left from the working class. Drawing upon a wealth of historical evidence to structure their story of entryism, corruption, fragmentation and decline, they close the book by outlining how a new reincarnation of the left can win in the 21st century.

©2023 Bristol University Press (P)2023 Professor Steve Hall
Ideologies & Doctrines Politics & Government
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about The Death of the Left

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting take on the left drifting off course

This book explores what many have wondered for decades. Why doesn't the left seem to care about the economic conditions of median working families and how did cultural issues come to dominate instead? In the United States, people struggle to understand the rise of Trump, a man of questionable moral character at best. The rise of Trump is easier to understand in terms of what voters are choosing NOT to embrace, what the left has to offer instead. This book explores the left's turn away from economic issues (wages, unions, putting guard rails on the worst exploitative tendencies of the free market system) and towards individual freedom and accompanying cultural issues. This turn led the left to embrace the same neoliberalism as the right. Both left and right now offer only free market capitalism, globalization, exploitative wages, and a belief that the market functions as the only higher power. In addition, the left offers unending cultural conflict that has no end in sight because there is no end to oppressed and oppressor. It's a lovely dead end street that solves no economic problems whatsoever.
The authors suggest a turn toward more socialism than many readers may be comfortable with as a remedy. That solution is not the power of this book. It's power is in understanding how or why the left abandoned the very issue that made it meaningful in the first place, the economic well being of average people. The authors suggest that the existing left must be abandoned and a new start established with a return to economic issues that led to general prosperity after WWII and into the 1960's. The book is written from a British point of view, but its message applies to the United States equally well.
I recommend Yascha Mounk and The Identity Trap along with this one as both books together tell a more compelling story. I didn't love the narration of this book, but it was adequate. Grover Gardner can't narrate all the books...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!