REVISED, EXPANDED EDITION

The first manuscript of this book was thrown into the fire just minutes before a secret police raid in Communist Poland.

The second copy was personally delivered to a contact inside the Vatican, only to mysteriously vanish.

The third was pieced together in 1980s New York by the last surviving member of an underground research team, only to be banned from publication...

Until now.

Forged in the crucible of totalitarianism, Political Ponerology is written by psychiatrist Dr. Andrew M. Lobaczewski, who draws on his experience and clinical insight during the decades he spent under the crushing heel of the Nazi and Communist regimes.

Decades ahead of its time, and brimming with unique insights and depth of vision, Political Ponerology explores a genus of highly adapted and charming psychopaths who bend political parties, institutions, and media to their depraved worldview, dividing and hypnotizing entire populations, and paving a virtuous path to genocide, mass repression, and gulags.

From the darkness of past regimes, Political Ponerology brings you the keys to understanding and protecting yourself from today's spellbinding ideologues, and tomorrow's dictators.

This new edition has been extensively revised and expanded, the translation improved and annotated with the latest supporting research, examples, and new material previously unavailable in English.

Essential reading for concerned thinkers and all sufferers of past and present totalitarianism. -Michael Rectenwald, author of Google Archipelago and Springtime for Snowflakes

Fascinating, essential reading. -Philip Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University, and author of The Lucifer Effect

Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage is a daring and candid memoir. NYU Professor Michael Rectenwald - the notorious @AntiPCNYUProf - illuminates the obscurity of postmodern theory to track down the ideas and beliefs that spawned the contemporary social justice creed and movement. In fast-paced creative non-fiction, Rectenwald begins by recounting how his Twitter capers and media exposure met with the swift and punitive response of NYU administrators and fellow faculty members. The author explains his evolving political perspective and his growing consternation with social justice developments while panning the treatment he received from academic colleagues and the political left.

The memoir is the story of an education, a debriefing, as well as an entertaining and sometimes humorous romp through academia and a few corners of the author's personal life. The memoir includes early autobiographical material to provide context for Rectenwald's academic, political, and personal development and even surprises with an account of his apprenticeship, at age nineteen, with the poet Allen Ginsberg.

Unlike many examinations of postmodern theory, Springtime for Snowflakes is a first-person, insider narrative. Likening his testimony to that of an anthropologist who has gone native and returned, the author recalls his graduate education in English departments and his academic career thereafter. In his graduate studies in English and Literary and Cultural Theory/Studies, the author explains, he absorbed the tenets of Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, as well as various esoteric postmodern theories. He connects ideas gleaned there to manifestations in social justice to explain the otherwise inexplicable beliefs and rituals of this religious creed. Altogether, the narrative works to demystify social justice as well as Rectenwald's revolt against it.

Proponents of contemporary social justice will find much to hate and opponents much to love in this uncompromising indictment. But social justice advocates should not dismiss this enlightening look into the background of social justice and one of its fiercest critics. This short testimonial could very well convince some to reconsider their approach. For others, Springtime for Snowflakes should clear up much confusion regarding this bewildering contemporary development.

The book provides a clear and balanced suggestion for unraveling the tangled twine of social justice ideology that runs through North American educational, corporate, media, and state institutions. Never soft-peddling its criticism, however, Springtime for Snowflakes delivers on the promise of the title by also including appendices that collect Dr. Rectenwald's saltiest tweets and Facebook statuses.

Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom begins with familiar cultural politics as points of entry to the book's theme regarding the reach, penetration, and soon the ubiquity of the digital world. In a book about enormous sea changes brought about by digital technology, Google Archipelago begins and ends with the political, in particular with the objectives of the Big Digi­tal conglomerates as global corporate monopoly capitalists or would-be-monopolies.

Google Archipelago argues that Big Digital technologies and their principals represent not only economic powerhouses but also new forms of governmental power. The technologies of Big Digital not only amplify, extend, and lend precision to the powers of the state, they may represent elements of a new corporate state power.

In contrast to academics who study digital media and bemoan such supposed horrors as digital exploitation, in Google Archipelago, Michael Rectenwald argues that the real danger posed by Big Digital is not digital capitalism as such, but leftist authoritarianism, a political outlook shared by academic leftists, who thus cannot recognize it in their object of study. Thus, while imagining that they are radical critics of Big Digital, academic digital media scholars (whom Rectenwald terms the digitalistas) actually serve as ideological smokescreens that obscure its real character.

Two chapters interrupt the book's genre as non-fiction prose. Part historical science fiction and part memoir, these chapters render the story of a Soviet Gu­lag survivor and defector, and the author's earlier digital self. Google Archipelago intentionally blurs the lines between argument and story, fact and artifact, the real and the imaginary. This is necessary, Rectenwald argues, because one cannot pretend to describe the Google Archipelago as if from without, as something apart from experience. In any case, soon one will no longer go on the Internet. The Internet and cyberspace will be everywhere, while humans and other agents will be digital artifacts within it.

The Google Archipelago represents the coextension of digitization and physical social space, the conversion of social space and its inhabitants into digital artifacts, and the potential to control populations to degrees unimagined by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, or Mao.

Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom begins with familiar cultural politics as points of entry to the book's theme regarding the reach, penetration, and soon the ubiquity of the digital world. In a book about enormous sea changes brought about by digital technology, Google Archipelago begins and ends with the political, in particular with the objectives of the Big Digi­tal conglomerates as global corporate monopoly capitalists or would-be-monopolies.

Google Archipelago argues that Big Digital technologies and their principals represent not only economic powerhouses but also new forms of governmental power. The technologies of Big Digital not only amplify, extend, and lend precision to the powers of the state, they may represent elements of a new corporate state power.

In contrast to academics who study digital media and bemoan such supposed horrors as digital exploitation, in Google Archipelago, Michael Rectenwald argues that the real danger posed by Big Digital is not digital capitalism as such, but leftist authoritarianism, a political outlook shared by academic leftists, who thus cannot recognize it in their object of study. Thus, while imagining that they are radical critics of Big Digital, academic digital media scholars (whom Rectenwald terms the digitalistas) actually serve as ideological smokescreens that obscure its real character.

Two chapters interrupt the book's genre as non-fiction prose. Part historical science fiction and part memoir, these chapters render the story of a Soviet Gu­lag survivor and defector, and the author's earlier digital self. Google Archipelago intentionally blurs the lines between argument and story, fact and artifact, the real and the imaginary. This is necessary, Rectenwald argues, because one cannot pretend to describe the Google Archipelago as if from without, as something apart from experience. In any case, soon one will no longer go on the Internet. The Internet and cyberspace will be everywhere, while humans and other agents will be digital artifacts within it.

The Google Archipelago represents the coextension of digitization and physical social space, the conversion of social space and its inhabitants into digital artifacts, and the potential to control populations to degrees unimagined by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, or Mao.

A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the political climate on campus - victimology, cancel-culture, no-platforming, and political correctness run-amok - began to bother him. He responded by creating a Twitter handle, @AntiPCNYUProf (now @TheAntiPCProf), and began bashing campus excesses with humor and biting satire. Predictably, he was soon discovered and pushed out of his job.

Rectenwald struck back by publishing Springtime for Snowflakes, a memoir of his experiences in academia, which included criticism and analyses of the leftism now dominating campus culture. He followed that book with Google Archipelago, which delves into the seeming enigma of why big business embraces far-left politics - hint: self-interest is involved - and the rapid growth of consumer/citizen surveillance. The foundation for a robust leftist totalitarianism is being carefully laid.

With this new volume, Rectenwald returns with his characteristic sharp wit and incisive analysis and continues to fine tune his critique of modern leftism. He brings his unique perspective as an ex-Marxist and civil libertarian to bear on leftist culture, with its abandonment of traditional morality and emphasis on collective social identities -- which are ironically increasingly atomized, as overwhelming centrifugal forces break up any previously stable social cohesion.

The revolution is here and it's winning. Find out why, and how to combat it. Get Beyond Woke.

The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda is the definitive treatment of the Great Reset. In a scholarly examination, Rectenwald treats the various components of the Great Reset, including the economic system it establishes, the deep history of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the population control ethics of the WEF and related globalist organizations, climate change catastrophism, the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (including transhumanism), and the question of conspiracy theory. Rectenwald ends with a nine-point plan for stopping the Great Reset in its tracks, as part of what he calls the Grand Refusal. Far from a conspiratorial rant, The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty is a thoroughly sourced account that lays bare the premises and implications of the Great Reset project.

The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda is the definitive treatment of the Great Reset. In a scholarly examination, Rectenwald treats the various components of the Great Reset, including the economic system it establishes, the deep history of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the population control ethics of the WEF and related globalist organizations, climate change catastrophism, the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (including transhumanism), and the question of conspiracy theory. Rectenwald ends with a nine-point plan for stopping the Great Reset in its tracks, as part of what he calls the Grand Refusal. Far from a conspiratorial rant, The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty is a thoroughly sourced account that lays bare the premises and implications of the Great Reset project.

A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the political climate on campus - victimology, cancel-culture, no-platforming, and political correctness run-amok - began to bother him. He responded by creating a Twitter handle, @AntiPCNYUProf (now @TheAntiPCProf), and began bashing campus excesses with humor and biting satire. Predictably, he was soon discovered and pushed out of his job.

Rectenwald struck back by publishing Springtime for Snowflakes, a memoir of his experiences in academia, which included criticism and analyses of the leftism now dominating campus culture. He followed that book with Google Archipelago, which delves into the seeming enigma of why big business embraces far-left politics - hint: self-interest is involved - and the rapid growth of consumer/citizen surveillance. The foundation for a robust leftist totalitarianism is being carefully laid.

With this new volume, Rectenwald returns with his characteristic sharp wit and incisive analysis and continues to fine tune his critique of modern leftism. He brings his unique perspective as an ex-Marxist and civil libertarian to bear on leftist culture, with its abandonment of traditional morality and emphasis on collective social identities -- which are ironically increasingly atomized, as overwhelming centrifugal forces break up any previously stable social cohesion.

The revolution is here and it's winning. Find out why, and how to combat it. Get Beyond Woke.

A distinguished Professor of AI-neuroscience and Theory of Mind, Cayce Varin has dissident thoughts. He differs from acceptable opinion on matters of grave importance to respectable Human Biologicals and the Federation of Pandemos, the global state. Upon confessing his divergent theories to a Graduate Student Assistant, his life is never the same. He is labeled a Thought Deviationist, among other damning designations. He is arrested by a Robot Police Agent and soon released but remains a covert Thought Deviationist living under the constant fear of future arrest, the treachery of friends, and the loss of his identity.

For Varin and a small cadre of Thought Deviationists, the ultimate threat is posed by Collective Mind-the vast centralized database and processing complex with apparent knowledge of everything, possibly even one's innermost thoughts. Varin and fellow Thought Deviationists believe that the Federation deliberately propagates a virus to keep Human Biologicals connected to Collective Mind. Submission to the virus spells the obliteration of the self. Resistance to the virus, made possible by taking the addictive drug Eraserall, means living as a fugitive from the law and being forever hunted by Robot Police Agents to be taken in for treatment.

Finally, it appears that the only solution is to infiltrate Essential Data, Collective Mind's main data and processing center. The risks are great, and the gambit may be impossible. But Varin's future, the future of Thought Deviationists, and the future of the individual itself, depend on the mission's success.

A distinguished Professor of AI-neuroscience and Theory of Mind, Cayce Varin has dissident thoughts. He differs from acceptable opinion on matters of grave importance to respectable Human Biologicals and the Federation of Pandemos, the global state. Upon confessing his divergent theories to a Graduate Student Assistant, his life is never the same. He is labeled a Thought Deviationist, among other damning designations. He is arrested by a Robot Police Agent and soon released but remains a covert Thought Deviationist living under the constant fear of future arrest, the treachery of friends, and the loss of his identity.

For Varin and a small cadre of Thought Deviationists, the ultimate threat is posed by Collective Mind-the vast centralized database and processing complex with apparent knowledge of everything, possibly even one's innermost thoughts. Varin and fellow Thought Deviationists believe that the Federation deliberately propagates a virus to keep Human Biologicals connected to Collective Mind. Submission to the virus spells the obliteration of the self. Resistance to the virus, made possible by taking the addictive drug Eraserall, means living as a fugitive of the law and being forever hunted by Robot Police Agents to be taken in for treatment.

Finally, it appears that the only solution is to infiltrate Essential Data, Collective Mind's main data and processing center. The risks are great, and the gambit may be impossible. But Varin's future, the future of Thought Deviationists, and the future of the individual itself, depend on the mission's success.

Nineteenth-Century British Secularism offers a new paradigm for understanding secularization in nineteenth century Britain. It argues that George Holyoake's Secularism represents a historic moment of modernity, a herald for understanding secularization and modern secularity.

Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate on-the-ground, extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

Global Secularisms addresses the state of and prospects for secularism globally. Drawing from multiple fields, it brings together theoretical discussion and empirical case studies that illustrate on-the-ground, extant secularisms as they interact with various religious, political, social, and economic contexts. Its point of departure is the fact that secularism is plural and that various secularisms have developed in various contexts and from various traditions around the world. Secularism takes on different social meanings and political valences wherever it is expressed. The essays collected here provide numerous points of contact between empirical case studies and theoretical reflection. This multiplicity informs and challenges the conceptual theorization of secularism as a universal doctrine. Analyses of different regions enrich our understanding of the meanings of secularism, providing comparative range to our notions of secularity. Theoretical treatments help to inform our understanding of secularism in context, enabling readers to discern what is at stake in the various regional expressions of secularity globally. While the bulk of the essays are case-based research, the current thinking of leading theorists and scholars is also included.

Michael Rectenwald's new collection of poems, Breach, offers a powerful and yet humble vision of the world where the poet has found new inroads to connectedness. Rectenwald manages to embrace and resist his subjects all at once-his authority is relinquished and, as such, the poems are invitations to the readers. He speaks not for us or to us, but with us: 'The lone tree quotes the aesthetic of/all trees so all trees/don't have to be trees.' The strength of these poems is not in the breach of contract with the world, but the breach in confidence and authority... a leap into humility and the unknown. These poems will connect you to a world you think you already know. - Rob Fitterman, author of twelve books of poetry, including Rob The Plagiarist, and Now We Are Friends. The speaker of Michael Rectenwald's 'Split Personalities' says, 'we sting to survive.' Another turns 'Togetherness' into a Lennonesque walrus of self-doubt. And in 'My Son Signals, ' the speaker concludes, 'The world's nothing but/one gesturing after/another.' In Breach, his new collection of poems, Michael Rectenwald stings, doubts, gestures. His forms range from the metered-and-rhymed, to the prose poem. His music ranges from post-doc analytics to morning after confessionals. The poems are surreal, hyperreal, they posit debtors in space, and wind up landing in Topeka, Kansas. It's a wild ride. Exhaustion and promise coexist in the same line: 'It seems like the autumn of my youth.' Wisdom pours forth from children: 'Look Daddy ... the future is MOVING.' Yes, it is. And so is Breach. - Tim Tomlinson, co-author of the Portable MFA; co-founder, New York Writers Workshop

Slaughter's book is a novel of linguistic and conceptual richness. It is at once sensuous, paradoxical, harsh and beautiful, a beautiful surrender to unpardonable brutality, and an artistic rendering of it. Slaughter's development of ideas from the raw material of a rich and varied life, his epigrammatic delivery of strange wisdom, and his uncompromising fatalism, make this a challenging and yet rewarding read. The chief character is divided into three selves: Pee-Pee, Wee, and Ronny. These three persons in one, although representing different stages of the protagonist's life, are nevertheless simultaneously existing. Pee-Pee is so-named because of the attachment that others especially have to his particular physiological organ, and somewhat because of the connection of self to its very extension in the world, the beginning of personhood. Wee is not only the older Pee-Pee, but also, as the name seems to suggest, a collective identity comprising not only the character but also all of the book's characters, as well as the readers of the book, and everyone else in the world, whatever that may mean. But, as the name suggests, Wee also leaks. He is unable to prevent anything from penetrating, and invariably lets everything out. Ronny is the adult Pee-Pee and Wee, but also a character, who incorporates everything he has witnessed and that has been done by every other character in the book. He contains Pee-Pee, Wee, and the thinking and actions of others, only in somewhat an obdurate way, such that he becomes like a graveyard filled with the stones commemorating their lives. Yet he is charged with continuing as the witness who cannot forget. -- Michael Rectenwald, author of The Thief and Other Stories, The Eros of the Baby Boom Eras, and Breach

Nineteenth-Century British Secularism offers a new paradigm for understanding secularization in nineteenth century Britain. It argues that George Holyoake's Secularism represents a historic moment of modernity, a herald for understanding secularization and modern secularity.