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Political Fictions
- Author
- Patrick Boucheron
- Narrator
- Martyn Swain
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish Date
- 4 November 2025
- Run Time
- 8 hours 58 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
In the wake of Donald Trump's election, renowned medievalist Patrick Boucheron delivered a powerful, probing series of lectures on "political fictions" in the context of rising authoritarianism and populism. Adapted here for the first time in English, they offer key insights into how we arrived at our current global moment and what history can teach us about moving forward.
Long before Trump parlayed his reality TV character into a presidential victory with the MAGA movement, aspiring rulers have used the art of storytelling and the power of fable to control others. Discussing seminal works from Machiavelli's The Prince and Hobbes's Leviathan to Orwell's 1984 and the writings of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, Boucheron explores the profound interconnectedness of political theory and fiction, and the tension between politics and the political.
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Details
- Author
- Patrick Boucheron
- Narrator
- Martyn Swain
- Duration
- 8 hours 58 minutes
- Release Date
- 4 November 2025
- ISBN
- 9798318511288
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Tantor Media, Inc
- Genre
- Literature: history and criticism, Politics and government, Political science and theory, Social and political philosophy
Synopsis
An acclaimed historian illuminates today's political situation by examining the relationship between governing and storytelling, from the Middle Ages to the "post-truth" present, in these engaging essays.In the wake of Donald Trump's election, renowned medievalist Patrick Boucheron delivered a powerful, probing series of lectures on "political fictions" in the context of rising authoritarianism and populism. Adapted here for the first time in English, they offer key insights into how we arrived at our current global moment and what history can teach us about moving forward.Long before Trump parlayed his reality TV character into a presidential victory with the MAGA movement, aspiring rulers have used the art of storytelling and the power of fable to control others. Discussing seminal works from Machiavelli's The Prince and Hobbes's Leviathan to Orwell's 1984 and the writings of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, Boucheron explores the profound interconnectedness of political theory and fiction, and the tension between politics and the political.
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