The Undertow
Scenes from a Slow Civil War
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Sharlet
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By:
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Jeff Sharlet
About this listen
An instant New York Times best seller.
One of America’s finest reporters and essayists explores the powerful currents beneath the roiled waters of a nation coming apart.
An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies—sometimes realities—of violence.
Across the country, men “of God” glorify materialism, a gluttony of the soul, while citing Scripture and preparing for civil war—a firestorm they long for as an absolution and exaltation. Lies, greed, and glorification of war boom through microphones at hipster megachurches that once upon a time might have preached peace and understanding. Political rallies are as aflame with need and giddy expectation as religious revivals. At a conference for incels, lonely single men come together to rage against women. On the far right, everything is heightened—love into adulation, fear into vengeance, anger into white-hot rage. Here, in the undertow, our 45th president, a vessel of conspiratorial fears and fantasies, continues to rise to sainthood, and the insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, killed on January 6 at the Capitol, is beatified as a martyr of White womanhood.
Framing this dangerous vision, Sharlet remembers and celebrates the courage of those who sing a different song of community and of an America long dreamt of and yet to be fully born, dedicated to justice and freedom for all.
Exploring a geography of grief and uncertainty in the midst of plague and rising fascism, The Undertow is a necessary reckoning with our precarious present that brings to light a decade of American failures as well as a vision for American possibility.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Jeff Sharlet (P)2023 Audible, Inc.Related to this topic
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- By CharlieSeymourJr on 05-01-24
By: Ari Berman
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Unholy
- Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump
- By: Sarah Posner
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this taut inquiry, Posner digs deep into the radical history of the religious right to reveal how issues of race and xenophobia have always been at the movement’s core, and how religion often cloaked anxieties about perceived threats to a white, Christian America. Fueled by an antidemocratic impulse, and united by this narrative of reverse victimization, the religious right and the alt-right support a common agenda.
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How We Got Here
- By D. Sooley on 06-16-20
By: Sarah Posner
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The Wannabe Fascists
- A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy
- By: Federico Finchelstein
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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With The Wannabe Fascists, historian Federico Finchelstein offers a precise explanation of why Trumpism and similar movements across the world belong to a new political breed, the last outcome of the combined histories of fascism and populism: the wannabe fascists.
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Be afraid. Be very afraid.
- By Geoffrey Barrett on 07-02-24
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The Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
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Refuting the Chicago School
- By Todd W. Laveen on 06-01-23
By: Naomi Oreskes, and others
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Shadow Network
- By: Anne Nelson
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1981, emboldened by Ronald Reagan’s election, a group of some 50 Republican operatives, evangelicals, oil barons and gun lobbyists met in a Washington suburb to coordinate their attack on civil liberties and the social safety net. These men and women called their coalition the Council for National Policy. Over four decades, this elite club has become a strategic nerve centre for channelling money and mobilising votes behind the scenes.
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Critical to understanding our current political dynamics.
- By Scott on 05-24-20
By: Anne Nelson
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America Last
- The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators
- By: Jacob Heilbrunn
- Narrated by: Kent Klineman
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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America Last is a guide for the perplexed, identifying and tracing a persuasion—or the "illiberal imagination"—that has animated conservative politics for a century now. Since the 1940s, the Right has railed against communist fellow travelers in America. Heilbrunn finally corrects the record, showing that dictator worship is a longstanding tradition within modern American conservatism that cannot be ignored—and what it means for us today.
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So frustrating
- By SarahMc on 03-13-24
By: Jacob Heilbrunn
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Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
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Important Fascinating. Compassionate. It may change your thinking.
- By F Shaw on 12-11-24
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The Brothers
- The Road to an American Tragedy
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 264 others. In the ensuing manhunt, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured and ultimately charged on 30 federal counts. Yet long after the bombings and the terror they sowed, after all the testimony and debate, what we still haven't learned is why. Why did the American dream go so wrong for two immigrants?
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Worth the time
- By MadeYouLook on 02-08-19
By: Masha Gessen
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Trust the Plan
- The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America
- By: Will Sommer
- Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has gained a mainstream following among Republican lawmakers and ordinary citizens, the threat it poses to democracy, and how we can reach those who have embraced the conspiracy and are disseminating its lies.
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The best one so far
- By joey carbo on 03-02-23
By: Will Sommer
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The Rebel's Clinic
- The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
- By: Adam Shatz
- Narrated by: Terrence Kidd
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon's shadow looms larger than ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography, Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon's stunning journey, which has all the twists of a Cold War-era thriller.
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Thrilling story
- By Diane on 09-07-24
By: Adam Shatz
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The Last American Road Trip
- A Memoir
- By: Sarah Kendzior
- Narrated by: Sarah Kendzior
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland–and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road–again and again.
By: Sarah Kendzior
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White Too Long
- The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for White Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
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The scourge of White Christian Supremacy
- By Buretto on 07-30-20
By: Robert P. Jones
What listeners say about The Undertow
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael D Murphy
- 06-29-23
Brave, Informed, Essential
A brave, informed, essential journey through America’s fractured psyche in the Trumpocene Era. Every good citizen should read this book.
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- Miriam Rosen
- 05-04-23
Brilliant!
The author’s journalistic style is immersive and his writing is visceral. I truly felt that sense of the culture and nuance of the MAGA base. Through his travels and interactions with true believers, the author effectively showed the ‘condition’ afflicting our country. His writing and voice had me feeling the undertow.
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6 people found this helpful
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- R. Ferguson
- 01-07-24
Correction: hang loose, not shocker
It is hilarious that this over-read egg head would bring in so much rich context and make a simple mistake of repeatedly saying the "shocker" hand gesture when I believe he means the hang-loose gesture.
In defense of Ashli Babbet, the gesture with the thumb and pinky is hang-loose. The shocker is like a scouts salute with an added pinky. The latter being a life sexual joke popular with adolescent boys that W was once tricked into flashing without knowing it's significance.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Briboflavin
- 05-07-23
Truth Hurts
A literary travelogue that weaves together tales of frightened, credulous Americans (all armed to the teeth) and the false prophets who manipulate them for profit or power. This has little to do with Trump—he’s an irritant, or perhaps another symptom. The Undertow is about how individual grief and fear become delusion and anger, and how quickly personal delusion and anger give way to mass psychosis in the Information Age.
Sharlet has a sharp-eye and dry delivery that (as has been noted previously) is very reminiscent of Joan Didion. The opening and closing chapters are barely related, but I was grateful for the buffer—what’s between is seriously fucking distressing.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Barry S. Graubart
- 01-02-24
Great opening and close
The opening chapter, focused on the life and activism of Harry Belafonte, is alone worth the price of admission.
The core story, following the ghost of Ashli Babbitt, is fascinating, but wanders and meanders at times. But even then, it’s insightful, especially for those of us who struggle to understand how folks can believe obvious conspiracy theories.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Will
- 05-29-23
Beautiful work!
The content is wonderful, beautifully brought to life by the narrative performance. A true tale of our current state of affairs seen through historical eyes.
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2 people found this helpful
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- DavidK
- 07-16-23
Very well written nonfiction
About a horrifying prospect. I recommend this to anyone and everyone , especially readers of good prose and poetry. One of the most lyrical and disturbing nonfiction audiobooks I’ve heard.
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- Fred
- 07-13-23
A must
In this moment read this. Take it in. Turn it over like a pebble in your mouth until you can name its contours. Timeless, urgent. Stride into this timeline with a large and open heart, do not abandon your trepidation for here you will find its soul, here too you will find hope.
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- William Diggins
- 10-20-23
Lyrical and honest
Jeff Sharlet’s appreciation for unflinching directness and the music of human self-determination permeates this account of what he found when he went to meet Americans who are preparing for civil war. Some seem eager, some wary. And what does civil war even mean to any particular person? As he finds repeadly, the definition depends on who you ask, how they see themselves and how they regard others. Lucky for us, Sharlet made it his business in this book to ask, to respectfully listen, to observe and report, in his reflective and lyrical prose, what people are saying. The people he asked are people who, rightly or wrongly, feel they are not listened to by eider society. You may have heard a lot of what they have to say before, but there is plenty of additional richness of perspective unearthed and pondered here. The shards are wrapped in Sharlet’s own love of music, the kind that fascism always wants to silence, and that makes this road trip with him worth your time.
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- Tom
- 10-13-23
An enthralling Travelogue through The American Hellscape.
One of the most frightening books I have read. I’d like to hope that Sharlet encountered only a very small slice of The American Citizenry and that their influence on the future of our Country will be minimal.
Unfortunately the geographic and demographic diversity of the folks his trip introduces us to cries out otherwise. That they all cling to a Common Worldview so driven by disappointment, anger, resentment, and grief is absolutely terrifying. How did we create a Society that has led them down this Rabbit Hole and what does that bode for America’s Future?!
I’m glad The Undertow was written and I’m glad that I read it. Five Stars but it has shaken me as no other account. *****
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