ON FASCISM: 12 LESSONS from AMERICAN HISTORY (audiobook) by Matthew C. MacWilliams

Published in September of 2020 by Macmillan Audio.

Read by Kevin Stillwell.
Duration: 4 hours, 18 minutes.
Unabridged.

MacWilliams is a sociologist who studies authoritarianism. He has done a number of surveys over American attitudes towards the Constitution and the freedoms of their fellow citizens and there are areas of concern that he outlines in On Fascism.

For example, "31% of Americans agree that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections is a good way of governing the United States" and "30% of Americans agree with the statement 'I often find myself fearful of other people of other races.'"

Other stats of concern are:

"44% of Americans agree that increasing racial, religious and ethnic diversity represents a threat to the security of the United States"

When you break down the numbers about "18 percent of Americans are highly disposed to authoritarianism. Another 23 percent or so are attitudinally just one step below them on the authoritarian scale." He goes on to explain that people who are disposed to authoritarianism value "authority, obedience and uniformity over freedom, independence  and diversity" and when they grow fearful or are manipulated by an autocrat they will not defend the freedoms of the minority - the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. 

MacWilliams argues that this is not a new phenomenon. There are some old surveys he can access but there is also the historical record, which is spotty. He didn't have to look very deep - most of these items are in every school child's American history book. For example, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Trail of Tears, The Dred Scott decision, the Japanese Internment camps and the McCarthy hearings. 

Lesson 1: American Enlightened or Authoritarian?
Lesson 2: Fomenting Fear
Lesson 3: All Lies Matter
Lesson 4: Gagging the press, Quashing Dissent
Lesson 5: Taking What is Rightfully Ours
Lesson 6: Using Fear and Violence to Control and Subordinate Others
Lesson 7: The Driving Out
Lesson 8: Fear as a Path to Power
Lesson 9: Galvanizing Group Identity
Lesson 10: Silence of the Law
Lesson 11: Fear Breeds Repression; Repression Breeds Hate; Hate Menaces Stable Government
Lesson 12: The Surveillance Society and the Big Lie

I found this short audiobook to be engaging and thought-provoking. I just kept wondering what MacWilliams would have thought about everything from Election Day up to January 6.

Highly recommended.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History.

STARMAN JONES (audiobook) by Robert A. Heinlein

 

Originally published in 1953.

Digital Audiobook version published in 2008 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Read by Paul Michael Garcia.

Duration: 8 hours, 29 minutes.

Unabridged.

Legendary science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) wrote a set of novels for the Scribner's publishing house early in his career as a novelist starting in 1947. Scribner's published 12 of them. One of his most famous works, Starship Troopers, was rejected as a volume in this series, but it was fully intended to be a part of it.  A 14th and final book featuring a female lead character was also rejected.  They all share a theme of space exploration moving roughly from humanity's first steps away from Earth to contact with massive alien empires in far and distant places.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)

Starman Jones falls right in the middle. It is the seventh novel in the series and humanity can travel to far and distant places and has met alien species, but it is exceedingly tricky. 

Max Jones is a teenager in the Ozarks on a future Earth. Times are tough and people with pull, connections or money are moving off-planet. Max has no pull, maybe has a connection and certainly has no money. When his widowed step-mother marries the neighborhood bully and lets him sell the family farm without warning Max runs away from home to find his own way.

As you can tell by the title, Max eventually makes it to space. The problem is that Heinlein spends a lot of time explaining the bureaucracy of the various space guilds (every profession has its own guild and its own obscure rules) and then goes on to explain in excruciating detail the formal and informal rules of a ship - how the galley works, how discipline is maintained, how to run an illegal still on board, how the crew relates to the passengers, how the crew relates to the officers, how the officers relate to the passengers, how the bridge officers relate to the other officers, how the bridge officers relate to each other and how the captain can help or hinder the ship's morale. It reminded me quite a bit of the extended descriptions of military life in Starship Troopers. 

If all of the "explaining" were edited out, or at least cut back, this book would probably come in 3 hours shorter and be all the better. 

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein.