Modern political life is a confusing and disorientating terrain of competing ideologies. Jason Blakely offers readers a lively, fresh and insightful guide through the labyrinth of conflicting and competing ideas in order to better understand why ideology in the modern era can be so divisive.

Lost in Ideology sets out from the conviction that the current disorientation engulfing the world's liberal democracies is in no small part ideological in origin. People feel confused because there are multiple ideological maps, so to speak, each marked by dramatically different points of interest, rivers, summits, roads, and total topographies. Ideology in the modern era has the paradoxical effect of orienting millions even as it disorients millions. This leads us to the present-day predicament in which individuals of every imaginable political stripe confidently declare: "I have a theory - but you? You have an ideology!"

About the Author

Jason Blakely is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu. He is the author of We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics and Power (2020) and Interpretive Social Science (2018).

Reviews

Makes the case for a more subtle and mind-opening perspective on ideology ... people who regard themselves as immune to ideological contagion would do well to read Blakely's book.

-- Inside Higher Ed

Citizens are too easily "lost in ideology". In this terrific book, Jason Blakely clarifies the shifting pathways and maps that shape both ideologies and possibilities for moving beyond them.

-- Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University and co-author of Degenerations of Democracy

This is a warm, humanist and vital book for our moment which does a tremendous job mapping the ideological terrain of the past 200 years. It manages to do so with both sophistication and a democratic sensibility. One is reminded of the quote attributed to Terence: "Nothing human is foreign to me". How many books can you point to where Michael Oakeshott, Wendy Brown, Marx and Mill, all are taken seriously and put in dialogue with one another?

-- Matt McManus, author of The Political Right and Equality and co-host of the Academic Edgelords podcast

Lost in Ideology is an intellectual feast for anyone interested in politics and intellectual history, brilliantly demonstrating the importance of the latter to the former. Whether decisively intervening in today's fascism debates, or thoughtfully explicating the many forms of environmentalism and feminism, Blakely assuredly guides the reader through leading ideas in today's political discourse. He thereby joins the ranks of great theorists of ideology, building on an already formidable foundation of contributions to interpretive social science.

-- Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, Cornell University

Jason Blakely is perhaps our finest critic of misplaced appeals to scientific authority in political life. But what's the alternative? In Lost in Ideology, he both posits and performs one, arguing that we are meaning-making animals, politics is cultural, and we must learn to interpret the ideologies we inevitably hold. Along the way, Blakely offers a brilliant tour d'horizon of modern politics, from fascism to feminism, socialism to sexual politics, and more - modeling a way of thinking and arguing we desperately need more of today: generous, humane, and even hopeful.

-- Matthew Sitman, co-host of Know Your Enemy

A fascinating new book ... Shadi [Hamid] and I loved the book.

-- Damir Marusic, Wisdom of Crowds Podcast

Elegant and provocative ... Lost in Ideology is a teacher's book whose greatest lesson is not about the content of major ideologies, but about the place of ideology in a life well-lived. Blakely reminds us that we humans are 'meaning-making animals' who craft stories to make sense of our encounters with others, with ourselves, and with the world.

-- The Dispatch



Book Information
ISBN 9781788216630
Author Jason Blakely
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Agenda Publishing
Publisher Agenda Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 16mm