Morbid Symptoms - by Owen Worth (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

As established centrist parties across the Western world continue to decline, commentators continue to fail to account for the far-right's growth, for its strategies and its overall objectives.

Morbid Symptoms examines the far-right's ascendancy, uniquely tracing its history from the end of the Cold War, revealing how its different dimensions have led to a series of contradictory strategies and positions that often leave their overall significance unclear. From the United States to Russia and from Britain across Europe to Greece, Owen Worth's analysis reveals that the left's failure to mount a radical alternative to the prevailing order has allowed the far-right to move in and provide an avenue for discontent and for change. Crucially though this avenue hasn't necessarily offered a definite alternative to the status quo as yet, meaning there is still a chance to change its significance in the wider global order.

This is an essential primer to the future of international politics and international relations.

Review Quotes

"Thoughtful and very timely. It captures much of what is contradictory in the relationship between the politics of the far-right and neoliberal world order and addresses some of the key questions, not only in terms of how we explain the rise of the far-right, but how the left/progressive forces should respond to it." --Dr Richard Saull, Queen Mary University of London

"Morbid Symptoms provides a novel, interesting, and timely analysis of the contemporary far right. It is an impressive work of scholarship." --George Hawley, author of The Alt-Right: What Everyone Need to Know

"Owen Worth provides a much-needed historical and economic perspective to the study of present-day extremism. By lucidly tracing the differences and, importantly, the similarities to the development of and themes pushed by the far-right across the Western world, this book provides a useful guide to the emerging transnational nationalism. Without succumbing to the more dramatic and hysterical predictions for the future, Morbid Symptoms identifies the political danger of recent developments and, most intriguingly, hints at possible solutions." --Michael Wendling, author of Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House

"Morbid Symptoms provides a novel, interesting and timely analysis of the contemporary far-right. It is an impressive work of scholarship." --George Hawley, author of The Alt-Right: What Everyone Needs to Know

"Thoughtful and very timely. It captures much of what is contradictory in the relationship between the politics of the far right and neoliberal world order." --Richard Saull, Queen Mary University of London

"A much-needed historical and economic perspective to the study of present-day extremism." --Michael Wendling, author of Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House

About the Author

Owen Worth is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His previous books include Resistance in the Age of Austerity: Nationalism, the Failure of the Left and the Return of God (Zed 2013) and Rethinking Hegemony (2015).
Owen Worth is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Limerick. His previous books include Resistance in the Age of Austerity: Nationalism, the Failure of the Left and the Return of God (Zed 2013) and Rethinking Hegemony (2015).