Cultural Dementia: How the West Lost Its History and Risks Losing Everything Else w/ David Andress (E67)

This is a conversation with David Andress. He is a Professor of  Modern History at the University of Portsmouth and is the author of the  book “Cultural Dementia: How the West has Lost its History and Risks Losing Everything Else“Topics DiscussedWhat is Cultural Dementia? And why use that term instead of Amnesia?Why focus on France, the UK and the US?The current crises in the three countriesGeorge  Orwell’s reflection on the relationship between  imperialism/colonialism, the UK’s welfare state and the white working  classFrance’s Trente GlorieusesProspects of Le Pen and the far right winning in FranceThe ‘Brexit spirit’Impact of Trumpism on US politics and what might come nextWhat is neoliberalism and how is that term (mis)used?What is populism and how is that term (mis)used?Berlusconi, the five star movement and racist politics in ItalyCanada, Australia and New Zealand’s specific contexts with regards to immigration and racismCambridge AnalyticaThe delusion of ‘socialism in one country’The realities and delusions of Brexit (including example of CANZUK proposals and how India is excluded)Ladybird libertarians (term by Otto English)Isolationism within the British Labour PartyWeaknesses within Left parties, especially Labour (Attlee, Wilson, Blair)The specificity of France and republicanism thereHow Melenchon and Le Pen agree on Vichy’s status as ‘not France’Chauvinism on the Left in FranceThe metaphor of the mansionThe Rhodes Must Fall  protests in the UKThe ‘race question’ and white supremacy in the USThe specificity of the US constitution (and how it is outdated and embeds conservatism)How history is taught (I gave the example of Lebanon)Recommended BooksPriya Satia, Time’s Monster; History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2020)Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire; Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019)Olivette Otele, African Europeans (Hurst, 2020)I also added:The Good Immigrant by Nikesh ShuklaAfropean: Notes from Black Europe by Johny Pitts