In this "crisp, engaging, and very smart" (The New York Times Book Review) work, The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic digs into books of the Trump era and finds that our response to this presidency often reflects the same polarization, contradictions, and resentments that made it possible. It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read just about all of them. In What Were We Thinking, he draws on some 150 recent volumes to explore how we understand ourselves in the Trump era. Lozada's characters are not the president, his advisers, or his antagonists but the political and cultural ideas at play--and at stake--in America. Just as Trump's election upended the country's political establishment, it shocked its intellectual class. Though some of the books of the Trump era skillfully illuminate the challenges and transformations the nation faces, too many works are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. Lozada offers a provocative argument: Whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, true believers or harsh critics, the books of Trump's America are vulnerable to the same failures of imagination that gave us this presidency in the first place. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada's selections range from bestselling titles to little-known works, from thoroughly reported accounts of the administration to partisan polemics, from meditations on the fate of truth to memoirs about enduring--or enabling--the Trump presidency. He also identifies books that challenge entrenched assumptions and shift our vantage points, the books that best help us make sense of this era. The result is an "elegant yet lacerating" (The Guardian) intellectual history of our time, a work that transcends daily headlines to discern how we got here and how we thought here. What Were We Thinking will help today's readers understand America, and will help tomorrow's readers look back and understand us.

The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic uses the books of the Trump era to argue that our response to this presidency reflects the same failures of imagination that made it possible. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his presidency reveals about our nation. Many of these, he's found, are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada uses these books to tell the story of how we understand ourselves in the Trump era, using as his main characters the political ideas and debates at play in America today. He dissects works on the white working class like Hillbilly Elegy; manifestos from the anti-Trump resistance like On Tyranny and No Is Not Enough; books on race, gender, and identity like How to Be an Antiracist and Good and Mad; polemics on the future of the conservative movement like The Corrosion of Conservatism; and of course plenty of books about Trump himself. Lozada's argument is provocative: that many of these books-whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, Trump's true believers or his harshest critics-are vulnerable to the same blind spots, resentments, and failures that gave us his presidency. But Lozada also highlights the books that succeed in illuminating how America is changing in the 21st century. What Were We Thinking is an intellectual history of the Trump era in real time, helping us transcend the battles of the moment and see ourselves for who we really are.

Este livro tem como tema principal o exame critico-analitico de textos que representam o que de mais significativo existe na tradicao literaria misogina Ocidental. Ja desde a sua introducao, e na extensao de cinco magistrais capitulos, estuda o que ha de mais exponencial para a questao da difamacao da mulher no mundo Antigo e no periodo medieval. Num percuciente esforco seletivo de fontes, prima por colocar em evidencia Aristoteles, Ovidio e Juvenal, autores do mundo Antigo que influenciaram a Patristica representada por escritos de Sao Jeronimo e Santo Agostinho, antecedidos por Tertuliano, Santo Ambrosio e Sao Joao Crisostomo. Passando por Graciano, chega-se a Abelardo e Heloisa, ao lado de outros autores visitados de forma mais sintetica, como Godofredo de Estrasburgo, o anonimo Ancrene Riwle e Guido delle Colonne. Marbodo de Rennes, Walter Map e Andre Capelao, da tradicao misogina satirica no latim medieval, e adaptacoes vernaculas na Idade Media tardia, com os nomes de Jean de Meun, Giovanni Boccaccio, Jehan Le Fevre e Geoffrey Chaucer comparecem no livro. Certamente elaborado de forma nao so de interesse academico, mas tambem didatico e de apelo popular, o livro muito contribuira para os estudos das questoes de Genero, da Idade Media, da Religiao, da Etica, entre outros. E, para alem da instrucao e informacao que podera proporcionar, a sua proposta principal e de valor indubitavelmente etico, de combate aos preconceitos, a misoginia que tao duramente malsaos e perversos, ainda nos dias atuais, atingem as pessoas e a nossa sociedade.

Este livro tem como tema principal o exame critico-analitico de textos que representam o que de mais significativo existe na tradicao literaria misogina Ocidental. Ja desde a sua introducao, e na extensao de cinco magistrais capitulos, estuda o que ha de mais exponencial para a questao da difamacao da mulher no mundo Antigo e no periodo medieval. Num percuciente esforco seletivo de fontes, prima por colocar em evidencia Aristoteles, Ovidio e Juvenal, autores do mundo Antigo que influenciaram a Patristica representada por escritos de Sao Jeronimo e Santo Agostinho, antecedidos por Tertuliano, Santo Ambrosio e Sao Joao Crisostomo. Passando por Graciano, chega-se a Abelardo e Heloisa, ao lado de outros autores visitados de forma mais sintetica, como Godofredo de Estrasburgo, o anonimo Ancrene Riwle e Guido delle Colonne. Marbodo de Rennes, Walter Map e Andre Capelao, da tradicao misogina satirica no latim medieval, e adaptacoes vernaculas na Idade Media tardia, com os nomes de Jean de Meun, Giovanni Boccaccio, Jehan Le Fevre e Geoffrey Chaucer comparecem no livro. Certamente elaborado de forma nao so de interesse academico, mas tambem didatico e de apelo popular, o livro muito contribuira para os estudos das questoes de Genero, da Idade Media, da Religiao, da Etica, entre outros. E, para alem da instrucao e informacao que podera proporcionar, a sua proposta principal e de valor indubitavelmente etico, de combate aos preconceitos, a misoginia que tao duramente malsaos e perversos, ainda nos dias atuais, atingem as pessoas e a nossa sociedade.