Radical Social Change in the United States

This book tackles the question of why the United States is so resistant to radical change towards economic justice and peace. Taking full stock of the despair that launched the popular support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, Swanger historicizes the political paralysis of post-1974 United States that deepened already severe economic inequalities, asking how the terrain for social movements in the early twenty-first-century US differs from that of the 1960s. This terrain is marked by the entrenchment of neoliberalism, anti-intellectualism, and difficulties paradoxically posed by the ease of social media. Activists now must contend with a paralyzing post-factual moment. Alain Badiou's thought informs this book on breaking through contemporary political paralysis.

Locates the present moment in US history within the context of a philosophical and activist history of radicalism Analyzes Alain Badiou's writings on Saint Paul to find resonances about a break between truth and knowledge, notions of the subject, and possibilities for change Connects its timely political analysis and theoretical readings with discourses of peace studies, conflict analysis, and conflict transformation

Autorentext
Joanna Swanger is Associate Professor and Director of the Peace and Global Studies Program at Earlham College, USA. Her most recent publication is Rebel Lands of Cuba: The Campesino Struggles of Oriente and Escambray, 1934-1974 (2015). Her scholarly work focuses on the intersection of social justice movements and resistance encountered by those movements.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Paul: Patron Saint of the Post-Factual .- The Lure of the Ancient Regime .- Nothing But The Truth .- Nothing Cures Malaise Quite Like Torture .- To Have Seen Too Much: The 1960s and the Turning of the Camera .- Now What?.