by John Patrick Leary (Author)
From liberal to the economy the terms used by pundits and politicians to
explain our civic structures tend to obscure as much as they reveal
about the reality they ostensibly describe. Yet the enduring vocabulary
of radical movement-building can be equally opaque when filtered through
both the distortions of the status quo and the partisan interests of
the activist left. How do we make sense of terms like socialism and intersectional that are so routinely used and abused by such a wide
array of commentators from across the political spectrum?
Keywords for Capitalism is a probing and insightful guide
designed to equip readers with the tools to do just that. Leary takes a
wit-sharpened scalpel to the evasions, neologisms, and half-truths that
crowd 'the discourse' and reveals the ideology of the mainstream
political media that lies just below the surface. In the process he also
carefully leads readers through the very real debates about the words
that really do mean something, attentively distinguishing the substance worth preserving from the froth that should be dismissed.
This masterful dressing down of corporate media jargon is
accompanied by over thirty illustrations that amplify and augment
Leary's searing words.
Author Biography
John Patrick Leary is the author of Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism and A Cultural History of Underdevelopment: Latin America in the US Imagination. He teaches social studies in the Philadelphia public schools.