A bit rambling and tangential compared to "Empire of Illusion", but still an incredibly important work. Especially towards the end, where Hedges gives a slew of practical routes people who want to work towards social justice can take (starting with volunteering for Catholic Worker, which I may do now that I've read this book!)

Just great as always from Chris Hedges. Not a book for optimists or people who hold out hope that humanity is not on a speeding train into oblivion. It is a full throated denunciation of so called liberals in the United States and their utter failure to represent the working class, slow down the rape of the ecosystem, or so much as be anything but whinier versions of conservatives who bow to the status quo at every possible turn. Read it!

Similar to his other book Empire of Illusion, this book focuses on American History and how the Liberal class was weakened and died over the course of American History. Well written and insightful, and since I know only a little bit about American History it was very informative as well.

This has not aged well -- in the time since I wrote the review below I think the gaps in Hedges' analysis, to put it kindly, have only become more glaring.

Original review: Death of the Liberal Class is a must-read, full of important truth told without compromise, and highly prescient in light of the current Occupy movement. It's far from flawless, though. Hedges is pretty unabashedly puritan, and while that has its strengths - no one makes a better moral case against pragmatic compromise - I do wonder where, say, sex & atheism fit into Hedges' political cosmology.

I share Hedges' view of New Atheism Inc., and I support highlighting radicals of faith. But what about us plain old atheists? And I understand the argument that pop culture can be distracting... but a lot of activists I know still find time for it while doing important, radical work. I'm not sure Hedges has time for any art or entertainment that isn't didactic social realism. Or some kind of spiritual, classical art. And the book kinda goes off the rails when Hedges lays into the internet at the end - bizarrely just after saying that using Twitter in your activism is valid, which is just a weird discontinuity.

Probably one of the best critiques on the neoliberal movement I've ever read. Hedges offers thorough academic analysis and thoughtful ideas on how to create change using impactful voices from our past. This is a must for anyone that desires a revolution from the corporatist system on display throughout today's America.

Clear and perceptive documentation of how power corrupts. Gave perspectives on liberal causes and movements that history books left out. A depressing read but a good one.

Hedges offers a fiery, depressing evisceration of the Left's feckless descent into a "lesser of two evils" state. For progressives who feel powerless to do much beyond wag fingers at their supposed allies in the Democratic Party - and take some measure of absolution from participating in that charade - this book will land a few body punches. Hedges, as always, writes particularly forcefully about the ravages of war. On the flip side, there are a few lulls, like a so-so chapter on protest art (although I enjoyed the shot at [b:Siddhartha|52036|Siddhartha|Hermann Hesse|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320519981s/52036.jpg|4840290]).

Hedges: "The liberal class has ossified. It has become part of the system it once tried to reform. It continues to speak in the language of technical jargon and tepid political reform, even though the corporate state has long since gutted the mechanisms for actual reform... The failure by the liberal class to articulate an alternative in a time of financial and environmental collapse clears the way for military values of hypermasculinity, blind obedience, and violence. A confused culture disdains the empathy and compassion espoused by traditional liberalism."

Dismantling the Liberal Class

This is as dense as a Chris Hedges book gets. There's so much to unpack in such a small number of pages that the reader feels as though he/she might explode if more than four pages are attempted per session.

However, I would make the claim that this is the most informative and relevant of all Hedges works (at least so far in my reading of the man), and warnings aplenty are planted throughout these pages for Americans - and the world - to take heed from. See below: if this extract takes your interest then perhaps consider putting The Death of the Liberal Class on your 'to-read' list:

"We stand on verge of one of the bleakest periods in human history, when the bright lights of civilization will blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites, who successfully convinced us that we no longer possessed the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe, will use their resources to create privileged little islands where they will have access to security and goods denied to the rest of us. As long as the mass of bewildered and frightened people, fed images by the organs of mass propaganda that permit them to perpetually hallucinate, exist in this state of barbarism, they may periodically strike out with a blind fury against increased state repression, widespread poverty, and food shortages. But they will lack the ability and self-confidence to challenge in big and small ways the structures of control. The fantasy of wide- spread popular revolts and mass movements breaking the hegemony of the corporate state is just that-a fantasy.

Hedges is pretty much spot on throughout this work, however there is an egregious error made in which he tarnishes the Black Panther Party with "becoming infected with the lust for violence, quest for ideological purity, crippling paranoia, self exaltation and internal repression as the state system they defied". I found this to be a highly contestable statement and I'm certain he was called out for this when he took part in a debate regarding the uses of black block just afrer occupy wall street took place. I'll let the reader decide how they feel about the above statement, however, this, along with some sweepingly dismissive statements about the 1960's protests, and the various mind opening, Eastern influenced aspects that were introduced to young western minds at the time, stopped me from giving this the full five star rating.

Despite this, I would go as far as to say this is required reading if one hopes to understand current American politics.