The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy

“In this brilliant work of cultural critique, A. J. A. Woods shows how the right borrowed the spectre of ‘Cultural Marxism’ from the reactionary fringe of the New Left and converted it into the conspiratorial fever dream we know today. Woods’ chronicle of the “Cultural Marxism” fantasy also doubles as a deep theoretical inquiry into the role of suspicion and projection in cultural politics. Its lessons are troubling and urgent.”
—Melinda Cooper

“A. J. A. Woods’s excellent The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy is a welcome addition to the literature on reactionary politics and sheds some much needed light on a conspiracy theory key to our current conjuncture.”
—Aurelien Mondon, author of Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream

“This is an unusually good book—both a forensic genealogy of an enduring meme and a reflection on the blunt incuriosity about the world that gives rise to such a destructive simplification in the first place.”
—Quinn Slobodian

“Few crackpot conspiracy theories have had the astonishing success of the radical right’s demonization of the Frankfurt School for deliberately undermining Western Civilization and spawning all the putative ills of “woke” culture today. By relentlessly tracking down its origins and untangling the connective web that abetted its international dissemination, A.J.A. Woods helps us understand how delusional thinking—Theodor Adorno was the fifth Beatle!!—can thrive in our increasingly gullible world.”
—Martin Jay, author of The Dialectical Imagination

“Cultural Marxism […] who came up with this slur and how the hell did they attach it to the Frankfurt School? A.J.A. Woods has your answers…and so much more”
—Jonny Diamond, editor-in-chief of LitHub, LitHub

“A deep and nuanced history. We have needed this book for a long time!”
—Moira Gallagher Weigel, co-editor of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do and How They Do It

“The modern right has blamed the specter of Cultural Marxism for everything they dislike about contemporary society. At long last, Woods endows us with an authoritative account of how and why a group of seemingly obscure European philosophers—the Frankfurt School—became the central antagonists in the latest conservative account of how outside agitators have disturbed our otherwise orderly Western civilization. To understand the Cultural Marxism conspiracy is to understand the ideological makeup of the modern right.”
—Andrew Hartman, author of Karl Marx in America

“[A] fascinating trawl through the backwaters of today’s culture wars”
—Kenan Malik, New Statesman

“The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy is a meticulously researched and often illuminating history of how a crackpot account of the Frankfurt School travelled from Lyndon LaRouche’s cult through the New Right and the Tea Party and into the transnational war on ‘woke’.”
—Paul Elias, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

“The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy is a spry genealogy of our strange reality, which traces the conspiracy from Lyndon LaRouche through the New Right to the Tea Party.”
—Patrick Iber, Dissent

“[A]n absorbing intellectual history of the left-turned-right zealots who birthed a conspiracy from their willful misreadings and exaggerations.”
—Michael Shorris, The Nation

“Woods demonstrates… Marcuse and co have been lucky in their enemies.”
—Christopher Bray, The Telegraph

“The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy reminds us that debunking conspiracy theories is insufficient. A meaningful alternative to the explanatory shortcuts they provide must offer something equally compelling, rendering the world intelligible without collapsing it into myth.”
—John Foster, The Battleground

“[A] notable history of an idea”
—Megan Dent, The Dispatch

“[A] welcome corrective.”
—Alexander Billet, Los Angeles Review of Books

“The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy… finally provides some much-needed answers to the wider circulation of some of the worst antisemitic and anti-communist sentiment seen in contemporary politics.”
—Georgios Samaras, LSE Review of Books

“[A] considerable achievement”
—Theryn Arnold, Geese Magazine

“[A] brisk, fascinating read that travels deep into the fringes of American far-right thought… and how those ideas have spread across the world.”
—Roz Milner, Liberal Currents