PanLos Angeles Review of BooksApparently considers himself a victim of liberal persecution compelled to practice the art of circumlocution in the name of his \'truth.\' And while the book has received a great deal of attention for its appeal to a new brand of right-wing politicians like Josh Hawley and J. D. Vance, it is particularly dangerous in the way that some of the most reactionary aspects of Deneen’s argument might appeal to people who don’t think of themselves as conservative ... An important and much-advertised public intervention whose ideas pose significant danger to liberal democracy in large part because they have the potential to be taken seriously by many people who should know better ... Deneen’s book radically rejects liberal democracy and subtly—if not entirely coherently—defends reactionary ends achieved through Machiavellian means ... Did Deneen support the January 6 coup attempt? His book doesn’t say. Does Deneen support violence in the streets? His book doesn’t say ... What it rationalizes is a reactionary present that deserves to be consigned to the past.
Bhaskar Sunkara
MixedThe Los Angeles Review of Books...a smart book ... The book has a hipster feel. It begins with a joke about Jon Bon Jovi...and concludes with chapters entitled \'Return of the Mack\' and Stay Fly.\' At the same time, the book is politically serious and even earnest about the importance of reviving the tradition of Marxian socialism, and it demands much of its readers by way of historical understanding and political conviction ... There is drama to his story, and a sense of direction. But at the same time, the drama is too simplistic, too buoyant, and too self-assured — as any text claiming to be The Manifesto must be. It fails to take account of the deeper failings of Marxism ... Sunkara’s \'manifesto\' encourages a kind of historical comfort and political rigidity that ill serves his readers ... Sunkara hinges his argument on his reading of history. As he acknowledges, all histories are in some sense \'selective.\' The problem with Sunkara’s account is how selective it is, and how much of importance it either leaves out or considers only as a footnote to Sunkara’s Marx-centered history of socialism ... Many young socialists will read the book. I hope they will learn from it. But I also hope they will interrogate it, and treat it as a spur to learn more about the things it fails adequately to discuss, so that they can better engage the others with whom they must work to defend democracy and extend the politics of social and economic justice.