The Dead Center

Reviews / Votes

"If you have appreciated Luke Savage's work... as much as I have, then you must pick up a copy of this book. Luke brings a smart, informed, critical perspective to bear on the crisis of American democratic life and the continuing class war from above against the democratic achievements of generations."
- Harvey J. Kaye, Professor Emeritus of Democracy & Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America


"Sardonic and hilarious, The Dead Center contains some of the best political, media, and cultural criticism I've read in some time. It's clear-eyed about the immensely powerful forces working against progress and the working-class. It left me feeling both angrier about liberalism's failures and more hopeful. This is a book that understands the past, present, and future of left politics as well as any I've read."
- Alex Shephard, The New Republic


"Luke Savage is one of the contemporary left's finest writers and one of liberalism's most astute and merciless critics. These qualities converge in The Dead Center, which catalogues twenty-first century liberalism's worst embarrassments and darkest betrayals. This entertaining and timely book will unsettle political moderates - and, more importantly, provide ample reinforcement for a rising generation of leftists intent on challenging them."
- Meagan Day, Associate Editor, Jacobin


"Liberalism, we know, is in crisis, and few people are better at dissecting the tensions of contemporary liberalism than Luke Savage... Savage illuminates the contradictions and blindspots that have made modern liberalism so ill-suited to solving the problems that bedevil the present moment. A must-read for anyone of any ideological persuasion interested in better understanding our age and its pathologies."
- Daniel Bessner, Joff Hanauer Honors Associate Professor, University of Washington


"Everyone should read this book. Luke Savage is a perceptive thinker and a lively and entertaining writer, and skewering centrist liberalism is what he does best. The socialist left is lucky to have him."
- Ben Burgis, author of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters


"It's more than a little infuriating that one of the most clear-eyed and insightful writers on American politics is Canadian, but I suppose that's just a sign of the times we live in."
- Josh Olson, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-host of The West Wing Thing