Description

“Every thinking American must read” (The Washington Book Review) this startling and “insightful” (The New York Times) look at how concentrated financial power and consumerism has transformed American politics, and business.

Going back to our country’s founding, Americans once had a coherent and clear understanding of political tyranny, one crafted by Thomas Jefferson and updated for the industrial age by Louis Brandeis. A concentration of power—whether by government or banks—was understood as autocratic and dangerous to individual liberty and democracy. In the 1930s, people observed that the Great Depression was caused by financial concentration in the hands of a few whose misuse of their power induced a financial collapse. They drew on this tradition to craft the New Deal.

In Goliath, Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism have returned to American politics for the first time in eighty years, as the outcome of the 2016 election shook our faith in democratic institutions. It has brought to the fore dangerous forces that many modern Americans never even knew existed. Today’s bitter recriminations and panic represent more than just fear of the future, they reflect a basic confusion about what is happening and the historical backstory that brought us to this moment.

The true effects of populism, a shrinking middle class, and concentrated financial wealth are only just beginning to manifest themselves under the current administrations. The lessons of Stoller’s study will only grow more relevant as time passes. “An engaging call to arms,” (Kirkus Reviews) Stoller illustrates here in rich detail how we arrived at this tenuous moment, and the steps we must take to create a new democracy.

About the author(s)

Matt Stoller is a Fellow at the Open Markets Institute. Previously, he was a Senior Policy Advisor and Budget Analyst to the Senate Budget Committee. He also worked in the US House of Representatives on financial services policy, including Dodd-Frank, the Federal Reserve, and the foreclosure crisis. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Vice, and Salon. He lives in Washington, DC. Goliath is his first book.

Reviews

"Goliath is a meticulously researched, powerfully argued and beautifully written book. Every thinking American must read it." The Washington Book Review 

"Deeply researched . . . Insightful." —Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times

"An engaging call to arms at a time when corporate power is increasing and that of the middle class evaporating." —Kirkus

"Goliath shows that a history of antitrust in the United States is ultimately a story about who we are as Americans, the limits we can place on private power, and government's ability to be a force for fairness and justice. The breadth and depth contained in this book is unlike any book written on the topic in recent memory—it is the kind of big economic history that the moment needs." —Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and co-chairman of the Economic Security Project 

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