Our list of some of the best Neoliberalism books & series in recent years. Get inspired by one or more of the following books.
1. A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2007)
Neoliberalism–the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action–has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the…
2. In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (The Wellek Library Lectures) (2019)
Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring?In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism’s multipronged assault on democratic values. From its inception, neoliberalism flirted with authoritarian liberalism as it warred against robust democracy. It…
3. Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (2010)
Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, “neoliberalism” has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world’s dominant economic paradigm, stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. Today, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been…
4. Neoliberalism (Key Ideas in Media & Cultural Studies) (2017)
Thanks to the rise of neoliberalism over the past several decades, we live in an era of rampant anxiety, insecurity, and inequality. While neoliberalism has become somewhat of an academic buzzword in recent years, this book offers a rich and multilayered introduction to what is arguably the most pressing issue of our times. Engaging with prominent scholarship in media and cultural studies, as well as geography, sociology, economic history, and political theory, author Julie Wilson pushes against easy understandings of neoliberalism as market fundamentalism, rampant consumerism, and/or…
5. Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital (2018)
By both its supporters and detractors, neoliberalism is usually considered an economic policy agenda. Neoliberalism’s Demons argues that it is much more than that: a complete worldview, neoliberalism presents the competitive marketplace as the model for true human flourishing. And it has enjoyed great success: from the struggle for “global competitiveness” on the world stage down to our individual practices of self-branding and social networking, neoliberalism has transformed every aspect of our shared social life. The book explores the sources of…
6. The Political Theory of Neoliberalism (Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times) (2019)
Neoliberalism has become a dirty word. In political discourse, it stigmatizes a political opponent as a market fundamentalist; in academia, the concept is also mainly wielded by its critics, while those who might be seen as actual neoliberals deny its very existence. Yet the term remains necessary for understanding the varieties of capitalism across space and time. Arguing that neoliberalism is widely misunderstood when reduced to a doctrine of markets and economics alone, this book shows that it has a political dimension that we can reconstruct and critique. Recognizing the…
7. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (Zone / Near Futures) (2017)
Neoliberal rationality―ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, and culture―remakes everything and everyone in the image of homo oeconomicus. What happens when this rationality transposes the constituent elements of democracy into an economic register? In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation;…
8. Economics after Neoliberalism (Boston Review / Forum) (2019)
Bringing together thirty-two world-class economists, Economics After Neoliberalism offers a powerful case for a new brand of economics―one focused on power and inequality and aimed at a more inclusive society. Three prominent economists―Suresh Naidu, Dani Rodrik, and Gabriel Zucman―lead off with a vision for economic policy that stands as a genuine alternative to market fundamentalism. Contributors from across the spectrum expand on the state of creative ferment Naidu, Rodrik, and Zucman describe and offer new essays that challenge the current shape of markets and suggest more democratic…
9. Blind Spot: How Neoliberalism Infiltrated Global Health (California Series in Public Anthropology) (2014)
Neoliberalism has been the defining paradigm in global health since the latter part of the twentieth century. What started as an untested and unproven theory that the creation of unfettered markets would give rise to political democracy led to policies that promoted the belief that private markets were the optimal agents for the distribution of social goods, including health care. A vivid illustration of the infiltration of neoliberal ideology into the design and implementation of development programs, this case study, set in post-Soviet Tajikistan’s remote eastern…
10. The Political Economy of Latin America (2018)
This brief text offers an unbiased reflection on debates about neoliberalism and its alternatives in Latin America with an emphasis on the institutional puzzle that underlies the region’s difficulties with democratization and development. In addition to providing an overview of this key element of the Latin American political economy, Peter Kingstone also advances the argument that both state-led and market-led solutions depend on effective institutions, but little is known about how and why they emerge. Kingstone offers a unique contribution by mapping out the problem of how…
11. Neoliberalism (Key Concepts) (2017)
For over three decades neoliberalism has been the dominant economic ideology. While it may have emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis of 2007-8, neoliberalism is now – more than ever – under scrutiny from critics who argue that it has failed to live up to its promises, creating instead an increasingly unequal and insecure world. This book offers a nuanced and probing analysis of the meaning and practical application of neoliberalism today, separating myth from reality. Drawing on examples such as the growth of finance, the role of corporate power and the rise of workfare, the book advances a…
12. In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement against Sexual Violence (2008)
In an Abusive State puts forth a powerful argument: that the feminist campaign to stop sexual violence has entered into a problematic alliance with the neoliberal state. Kristin Bumiller chronicles the evolution of this alliance by examining the history of the anti-violence campaign, the production of cultural images about sexual violence, professional discourses on intimate violence, and the everyday lives of battered women. She also scrutinizes the rhetoric of high-profile rape trials and the expansion of feminist concerns about sexual violence into the international human-rights arena. In the…
13. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order (1998)
Why is the Atlantic slowly filling with crude petroleum, threatening a millions-of-years-old ecological balance? Why did traders at prominent banks take high-risk gambles with the money entrusted to them by hundreds of thousands of clients around the world, expanding and leveraging their investments to the point that failure led to a global financial crisis that left millions of people jobless and hundreds of cities economically devastated? Why would the world’s most powerful military spend ten years fighting an enemy that presents no direct threat…
14. Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (Zone / Near Futures) (2019)
Why was the discourse of family values so pivotal to the conservative and free-market revolution of the 1980s and why has it continued to exert such a profound influence on American political life? Why have free-market neoliberals so often made common cause with social conservatives on the question of family, despite their differences on all other issues? In this book, Melinda Cooper challenges the idea that neoliberalism privileges atomized individualism over familial solidarities, and contractual freedom over inherited status. Delving into the history of the American poor laws, she shows how the liberal…
15. Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (2014)
Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education reveals how neoliberal policies, practices, and modes of material and symbolic violence have radically reshaped the mission and practice of higher education, short-changing a generation of young people.Giroux exposes the corporate forces at play and charts a clear-minded and inspired course of action out of the shadows of market-driven education policy. Championing the youth around the globe who have dared to resist the bartering of their future, he calls upon public intellectuals—as well as all people concer ned about…
Best Neoliberalism Books You Must Read
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some neoliberalism books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
The Rise Of Post-Modern Conservatism: Neoliberalism, Post-Modern Culture, And Reactionary Politics
Author(s): Matthew McManus
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2020, Size: 3 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2424236
Neoliberalism In Context: Governance, Subjectivity And Knowledge
Author(s): Simon Dawes, Marc Lenormand
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2020, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2441414
Reinventing Liberalism: The Politics, Philosophy And Economics Of Early Neoliberalism (1920-1947)
Author(s): Ola Innset
Publisher: Springer, Year: 2020, Size: 5 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2464767
Nine Lives of Neoliberalism
Author(s): Dieter Plehwe; Quinn Slobodian; Philip Mirowski
Publisher: Verso, Year: 2020, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2505802
Neoliberalism in Context: Governance, Subjectivity and Knowledge
Author(s): Simon Dawes; Marc Lenormand
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2020, Size: 7 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2532599
Disasters and Neoliberalism: Different Expressions of Social Vulnerability
Author(s): Gabriela Vera-Cortés, Jesús Manuel Macías-Medrano
Publisher: Springer, Year: 2020, Size: 8 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2814660
Neoliberalism in Multi-Disciplinary Perspective
Author(s): Adrian Scribano, Freddy Timmermann Lopez, Maximiliano E. Korstanje
Publisher: Springer International Publishing;Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2019, Size: 2 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2251060
The Sovereign Consumer: A New Intellectual History of Neoliberalism
Author(s): Niklas Olsen
Publisher: Springer International Publishing;Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2019, Size: 3 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2310654
Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume II: Prising Open the Cracks
Author(s): Catherine Manathunga, Dorothy Bottrell
Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2019, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2311430
Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education Volume I: Seeing Through the Cracks
Author(s): Dorothy Bottrell, Catherine Manathunga
Publisher: Springer International Publishing,Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2019, Size: 3 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 2311452
Please note that this booklist is not definite. Some books are truly best-sellers according to Los Angeles Times, others are drafted by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant links you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.