“The Campus Origins of Today’s Radical Right and the Crisis of American Democracy”

A talk by Nancy MacLean, author of the National Book Award Non-Fiction Finalist, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.

Booklist calls Democracy in Chains “perhaps the best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to irrevocably alter American government.” The Guardian said: “It’s the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century.”

Democracy in Chainsblows open the doors to the unknown history of the relentless campaign by the radical rich to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize everything from schools to Medicare and Social Security, stop action on climate change, and alter the U.S. Constitution. MacLean traces this game plan back to the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan, who forged his ideas in an attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education.

Painstakingly researched over ten years with unprecedented access to Buchanan’s personal files, Democracy in Chainsexplores the genesis of this new radical right, from its beginnings in academia to the eventual embrace and financial backing of the billionaire Charles Koch and the network of wealthy, right-wing donors he has built.

As much of America (and the world) reels from a seemingly unexpected swing to populism and far-right rhetoric, Democracy in Chainsoffers a peek behind the curtain to reveal just how we got here and what the future will hold. The Nation magazine has named it “the most valuable book” of the year.

Free copies of Democracy in Chains will be available to the first 100 attendees, couyrtesy of Nancy MacLean and the SU chapter of AAUP.

Following her talk, Nancy MacLean will sign copies of Democracy in Chains.