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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   1635 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 2, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Any good books about political theory in the modern-day?

I honesty don't care if it controversies,because i want to learn more about knowledge, and learn more about the new right or left wing in America

I would pair Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics with the ACX Book review of Hannania's Public Choice Theory & The Illusion of Grand Strategy. The two are complementary in that they are complete contradictions. Understanding the internal logic of both is a good foundation to be able to call bullshit on other people's spouting off regarding IR.

I think International Relations theory is tragically under considered. Too often people first form a domestic political sense of "what should be" and then scale it up to the world stage, instead of first asking "what is" and then figuring out what they value that can be done within that context.

Thanks for recommendations, it much appreciated since i wanted to be more in depth about political subject

Martin Gurri’s Revolt of the Public is insightful and an entertaining read.

Seconded. Gurri's book is the book to understand modern populism.

I would also add Leo Strauss's What Is Political Philosophy (essay), Burnham's The Machiavellians, Nick Land's Xenosystems: Fragments (google for pdf), and Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism. Consider Baudrillard as well. The first three will give you a good overview of the stages of political theory leading to the new right, and Fisher is the last leftist theorist of any intellectual note to gain real memetic reach (Zizek is not what you're looking for here lol).

Thanks for the recommendations, much appreciated.

Kind of you to say. Other suggestion to understand the modern Left: Foucault is critical, probably Discipline and Punish or History of Sexuality Volume 1. The thing to realize with Foucault is that his work was both a major tool for the leftist project of tearing down old structures of social power, and their blueprint for building their own mechanisms of social control.

I am generally not a fan of reading a lot of stuff about object-level politics, aside from this website, but if you would like magazines, I would say the Claremont Review of Books is the best place to get political theory from the modern intellectual Right. Charles Haywood's book reviews for the extremely online rightist perspective. Left is harder to find a single source, maybe relevant NYRB articles. The Economist or Foreign Policy for the Establishment view (it's easy to get sucked into just following the right/left wing conflict, but ultimately their respective conflicts with the establishment are more important than the beefs they have with each other).

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