Select delivery location
See All Buying Options
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Frederick F. Siegel
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class Hardcover – January 28, 2014

by Fred Siegel (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 406 ratings
See all formats and editions
Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.
View Kindle Edition
This short book rewrites the history of modern American liberalism. It shows that what we think of liberalism today – the top and bottom coalition we associate with President Obama - began not with Progressivism or the New Deal but rather in the wake of the post-WWI disillusionment with American society. In the twenties, the first writers and thinkers to call themselves liberals adopted the hostility to bourgeois life that had long characterized European intellectuals of both the left and the right. The aim of liberalism’s foundational writers and thinkers such as Herbert Croly, Randolph Bourne, H.G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis and H.L Mencken was to create an American aristocracy of sorts, to provide a sense of hierarchy and order associated with European statism.

Like communism, Fabianism, and fascism, modern liberalism, critical of both capitalism and democracy, was born of a new class of politically self-conscious intellectuals. They despised both the individual businessman's pursuit of profit and the conventional individual's pursuit of pleasure, both of which were made possible by the lineaments of the limited nineteenth-century state.

Temporarily waylaid by the heroism of the WWII generation, in the 1950s liberalism expressed itself as a critique of popular culture. It was precisely the success of elevating middle class culture that frightened foppish characters like Dwight Macdonald and Aldous Huxley, crucial influences on what was mistakenly called the New Left. There was no New Left in the 1960s, but there was a New Class which in the midst of Vietnam and race riots took up the priestly task of de-democratizing America in the name of administering newly developed rights

The neo-Mathusianism which emerged from the 60s was, unlike its eugenicist precursors, aimed not at the breeding habits of the lower classes but rather the buying habits of the middle class.

Today’s Barack Obama liberalism has displaced the old Main Street private sector middle class with a new middle class composed of public sector workers allied with crony capitalists and the country’s arbiters of style and taste.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Encounter Books
  4. Publication date
    January 28, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1.25 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1594036985
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1594036989
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Editorial Reviews

Review


“The roots of American liberalism are not compassion but snobbery. So argues historian Fred Siegel in The Revolt Against the Masses. Siegel traces the development of liberalism from the cultural critics of the post WWI years to the gentry liberals today, and he shows how the common thread is scorn for middle-class Americans and for America itself. This is a stunningly original—and convincing—book.”

— Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics

“Fred Siegel’s superb The Revolt Against the Masses should be required reading for those who wonder how liberal elites came to dominate our culture, overriding the will of the people. Siegel’s book is history at its best and most relevant.”

— Roger L. Simon, Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, author, and founder of PJ Media

“In The Revolt Against the Masses, Fred Siegel reveals the intellectual underpinnings of today’s ascendant gentry liberalism, which leaves old-fashioned liberals, including, I suspect, Siegel himself, politically homeless. The increasingly anti-democratic character of liberalism also undermines much of the reason we became progressives in the first place, which was to help the middle and working classes. The gentry’s stridency and hypocrisy—what’s OK for them is not for everyone else—is utterly transforming liberalism today. The progressives portrayed in this book are not so much the heirs of Jefferson or Jackson or even Roosevelt, as they are the American heirs of the worst high-toned Tories.”

— Joel Kotkin, author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050

About the Author

Fred Siegel is the author, most recently, of The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life (2005), which received the cover review in the New York Times Book Review. His previous book, The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America’s Big Cities, was named by Peter Jennings as one of the 100 most important books about the U.S. in the twentieth century. He has written widely on American and European politics and was described as “the historian of the American city” in a November 2011 profile in the Wall Street Journal.

The former editor of City Journal, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Commentary, The New Republic, Dissent, and many other publications. He has also appeared widely on TV and radio.

A former senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Mr. Siegel is currently a scholar in residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books (January 28, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594036985
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594036989
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.12 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 406 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Frederick F. Siegel

Frederick F. Siegel

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
406 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book very good, well-written, and interesting. They also find it informative, full of facts, and logical. Readers describe the book as well-researched and refreshing.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
ReadabilityInformation qualityClarity
31 customers mention "Readability"25 positive6 negative

Customers find the book well-written, interesting, and witty. They also say it's a good study of the liberalism ideology in America.

"This is a terrific book. It is the best explanation of 20th century politics in the US that I have seen and i have read quite a bit...." Read more

"This is a great read for some of us who do not know how Liberalism started years ago...." Read more

"...It is witty, sharp, and lucid. But it needed better editing. There a numerous repetitions, typographical errors, and mixed or inapt metaphors...." Read more

"...This section of the book is worth a read, as a standalone - good for high school students and soon-to-be-voters...." Read more

23 customers mention "Information quality"23 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative, full of facts, and logical. They say it's well-researched, well-written, and refreshing. Readers also mention the author does an outstanding job explaining the liberal mindset.

"This is a terrific book. It is the best explanation of 20th century politics in the US that I have seen and i have read quite a bit...." Read more

"...This is not a book of propaganda or agenda, it is informative. Learn what they are hoping to accomplish, and it isn't good for America...." Read more

"...But you will. It follows a chronological development, with many illustrative examples...." Read more

"This book gives a clear, rational and well-researched argument that liberalism is nothing more than pure snobbery and elitism - something I have..." Read more

4 customers mention "Clarity"4 positive0 negative

Readers find the book clear, rational, and well-researched. They also say it's witty, sharp, and an eye-opener.

"...It is witty, sharp, and lucid. But it needed better editing. There a numerous repetitions, typographical errors, and mixed or inapt metaphors...." Read more

"This book gives a clear, rational and well-researched argument that liberalism is nothing more than pure snobbery and elitism - something I have..." Read more

"...reader all this may be ho-hum, but for me it was a great read and an eye-opener." Read more

"Outstanding! A clear, concise and historically factual account of how the Left has twisted America's values and culture to fit their collectivist..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Michael T Kennedy
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book about 20th century politics.
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is a terrific book. It is the best explanation of 20th century politics in the US that I have seen and i have read quite a bit. I sent a copy to one of my children, who is a leftist but seems more open minded than most leftists. One of the things that Fred Siegel explains is why the left has closed all avenues to debate or compromise. Charles Krauthammer, another excellent theorist, has said that Republicans think Democrats are stupid while Democrats think Republicans are evil. This is in the same vein as Siegel's book but he explains how this came about. The Democratic Party has changed sharply since 1972 and the McGovern revolution. It is no longer the party of HarryTruman and Albin Barkley. It may no longer be the party of Lyndon Johnson who meant well but whose legislative prowess left us with an unaffordable welfare state. If Barack Obama has his way, the new immigrants that he is flooding the country with, will vote to keep their patrons in power but the whole edifice will collapse as Detroit has collapsed and as Chicago is about to collapse. I can only hope my daughter will read it and take some counsel from it.

I have a few disagreements with Siegel who seems to disdain Coolidge and Harding while I consider them to have been heroes of American progress. Few are willing to think about why the 1920s were so successful and prosperous. I consider them to have been the equivalent of the 1990s as new technology and inventions fueled rapid growth. Like the 2008 collapse, the 1920s ended with a bubble due to unreasonably low interest rates and the speculation they fueled.
17 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
MerleS
5.0 out of 5 stars This will explain it
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
Confused by today's politics, or the direction the country has been taking? Learn how the middle class must be destroyed by the globalists, and why none of what is going on is anything except on purpose. Know the enemy so that you can understand how to resist and help others to understand. This is not a book of propaganda or agenda, it is informative. Learn what they are hoping to accomplish, and it isn't good for America. If you are a serious and responsible, hard working middle class person, with conservative values and respect for the U.S. Republic, you need this yesterday.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Bonnie
5.0 out of 5 stars AMEN, AMEN
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
This is a great read for some of us who do not know how Liberalism started years ago. The history of liberalism and in my opinion is on an agenda to change the AMERICAN DREAM. Socialism has not succeeded in any country it has tried but has actually destroyed their way of lives controlled by THE ELITE (at least in their eyes) as they know what is best for ALL people. Their agenda gets stronger and stronger as they continue to "control more and more people." I was glad to now have a great history on how AMERICA became strong and how the liberals what to destroy freedom and want control of all people's lives.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Peter Cohee
4.0 out of 5 stars Krugmanites will not be amused
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2014
Verified Purchase
A wonderful book, with some deficiencies. Fred Siegel has obliterated the conceit of today's liberals, now self-styled as "Progressives," namely that they derive their ideology from the first generation of the great progressives, filtered through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Kennedys, and the Great Society. No, today's liberals are in fact but present links in a long chain of writers and thinkers, especially after WWI, who loathed and detested the middle class of shopkeepers and enterprisers ("Rotarians" and "Babbitts" being the most common pejorative epithets for Americans), who continue to strive to place American government in the hands of an elite corps of We Know Best technocrats, and who yearn for a European decayed aristocracy and welfare statism. It details, step by step, how the Democratic party, far more than the Republican, has lost its respect for, need of, and interest in the American middle class, clinging to guns and religion. The book is thus an exposé; the exposed will not much like it. But you will. It follows a chronological development, with many illustrative examples.

It is witty, sharp, and lucid. But it needed better editing. There a numerous repetitions, typographical errors, and mixed or inapt metaphors. Reaching back to Plato's Republic would have provided greater historical depth, for his "Guardians" are the antecedents to Wells's "samurai," as is the whole notion of utopian central planning by a trained elite. Of course, for Plato, it was only a thought experiment. Siegel does trace throughout a thin thread of the free love movement that began with some of the original progressives, but I think it should be made a much larger part of the whole fabric. His irony is spot on when he notes the liberal passion for unlimited sexual freedom in an ever more tightly-controlled state. Finally, the work is peppered with references, allusions, and quotes, but there are no notes or citations. That should certainly be corrected in a second edition.
50 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Max Layton
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!
Reviewed in Canada on May 3, 2014
Verified Purchase
Insightful, informative, well-written, devastating critique of "liberal" thought -- and the totalitarian impulse behind it -- over the past 100 years. Impeccably researched and full of fascinating nuggets of information. I would recommend this book to any liberal who is not afraid to see himself in a very unflattering mirror...
Report
Cam
5.0 out of 5 stars I hate forced reviews
Reviewed in Canada on August 8, 2020
Verified Purchase
Arrived as described and on time
Report
Mr. Richard Kneller
5.0 out of 5 stars A frightening story
Reviewed in Canada on February 27, 2014
Verified Purchase
A true and frightening story of one man's escape from a North Korean labor camp. An essential book if one wishes to understand
the hermit kingdom and it's inner hell.
Report