Sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been hard at work on the manuscript for the second edition of The Reactionary Mind, which I’ve now completed! While the immediate impetus for the second edition was the election of Trump—so there now will be a 13,000-word monster of a concluding chapter on Trump—the new edition has allowed me to confront some nagging concerns I had about the first edition. As I explain in the preface to the new edition: Beyond Trump’s election, I had two reasons for writing this new edition of The Reactionary Mind. First, I’ve long felt that the first edition suffered from an inattention to the economic ideas of the right. While some of the essays dealt with those ideas […]

It’s been a while since my last round-up of news about The Reactionary Mind. Here’s what you missed: Reviews Two reviews of the book have recently appeared. In The American Conservative, John Derbyshire—the British-born conservative who also happens to be a contributing editor at National Review—didn’t agree with or like the book. But he did have this to say (alas, the review’s behind the firewall): On the positive side, The Reactionary Mind at least does not snarl or sputter. It is a thoughtful, even-tempered sort of book. The old maid tendency that dominates liberal polemic in the U.S.—the shrieking, clutching at skirts, and jumping up on kitchen chairs that one gets from a Joe Nocera, a Maureen Dowd, or a […]

A review of The Reactionary Mind appears in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. It’s by Sheri Berman, a respected political scientist at Barnard and author of an important book on the origins and triumph of social democracy. It’s a negative review—which is unfortunate and unpleasant. But beyond matters of fortune and feelings, there is substance, and that calls for at least a provisional response. In her opening paragraph, Berman writes: A book documenting the wreckage and continually tracing the links between right-wing ideas, policies and outcomes would be a significant contribution to public debate. Unfortunately, Corey Robin’s “Reactionary Mind” is not that book. My goal in writing The Reactionary Mind was to understand the right—not to criticize it […]