Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Guardian

    To understand the far right, look to their bookshelves | Elif Shafak

    From Jordan Peterson to Thilo Sarrazin, rightwing writers are bringing once fringe ideas into the mainstream
    by Elif Shafak Apr 01, 2019 4 minutes
    ‘Thilo Sarrazin’s 2010 book Germany Abolishes Itself topped German bestseller lists for 21 weeks and sold 1.5m copies.’ Sarrazin at the book launch in Berlin. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

    I used to live in Tucson, teaching at the University of Arizona. The post-9/11 US, just half an hour away from the Mexican border, was a strange place to be. Armed vigilantes patrolled the desert hunting for illegal immigrants. Every day the local radio spewed paranoia and xenophobia. They talked about “true Americans” in small towns with “pure values”, as opposed to the corrupt liberal elite in the cities. A radical-right rhetoric was beginning to form, but it was still on the margins.

    Poll after poll showed that trust in basic democratic institutions was diminishing. It was against this background that the rightwing radio host Rush Limbaugh claimed”: media, academia, science and government. Conspiracy theories mushroomed about how “liberal lobbies” had usurped the system. Populist demagogues began to advise building alternative rightwing institutions. A parallel universe. Information wars. Culture and knowledge, which have for centuries bound us together as human beings, were now regarded as a battleground.

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Guardian

    The Guardian3 min readWorld
    Historians Come Together To Wrest Ukraine’s Past Out Of Russia’s Shadow
    The opening salvo in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year was not a rocket or a missile. Rather, it was an essay. Vladimir Putin’s On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, published in summer 2021, ranged over 1,00
    The Guardian4 min read
    ‘Almost Like Election Night’: Behind The Scenes Of Spotify Wrapped
    There’s a flurry of activities inside Spotify’s New York City’s offices in the Financial District. “It’s almost like election night,” Louisa Ferguson, Spotify’s global head of marketing experience says, referring to a bustling newsroom. At the same t
    The Guardian4 min read
    Whether In Song Or In Silence, Shane MacGowan Exuded The Very Essence Of Life
    Shane MacGowan and I sat in near silence for two hours last year. We were at his home, just outside Dublin. I’d been warned by his wife, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke, that he was depressed and anxious, not really in the mood to talk. But nothing c

    Related Books & Audiobooks