The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity; THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Description

Our age may think of itself as open minded. But if a taboo is something that everybody knows to be true, but which nobody is meant to say, then this age has as many as any other. On a huge number of matters from gender to sexuality and race to mental health our age is undergoing a set of transformations in attitudes. Social media and online networks far from freeing up dissenting speech have emboldened the mob and exacerbated group think. In his first book since the author's sparkling bestseller (The Strange Death of Europe), Douglas Murray examines some of these taboos and in the process describes the underlying issue to be what he terms 'Intersectionality'. It turns all identity groups into one camp, turns morally neutral character traits into virtues and goods in themselves. And these are then used as weapons against the real enemy: patriarchy, whiteness, heterosexuality and so much more. Diving in at the deep end, Murray launches into the transgender debate where non-binary and gender-queer abound. This has become the right-on agenda after gay liberation has accomplished its aims. Are women the same as men? What about people of colour? Anti-Imperialism - the statue of Cecil Rhodes being a case in point. The crisis in mental health - the fight for recognition of genuine mental health problems. Can the stampede to medicalise society be halted? The task of this book is to suggest some of the things we are currently doing which our descendants will look back at with bafflement and wonder. The book ends with a quote from H. L. Mencken: 'The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who have heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world.' We are overdue for some cat heaving.

Douglas Murray graduated with a double first from Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now associate director of The Henry Jackson Society, a think tank devoted to fighting for freedom of speech, and Assistant Editor of the Spectator.

Douglas Murray fights the good fight for freedom of speech ... A truthful look at today's most divisive issues * Jordan B. Peterson, bestselling author of 12 Rules for Life * [Murray's] latest book is beyond brilliant and should be read, must be read, by everyone. He mercilessly exposes the hypocrisy and embarrassingly blatant contradictions that run rife through the current 'woke' vogue. * Richard Dawkins * Whether one agrees with him or not, Douglas Murray is one of the most important public intellectuals today. * Bernard-Henri Levy * How can you not know about The Madness of Crowds? It's actually the book I've just finished. You can't just not read these books, not know about them. * Tom Stoppard * Simply brilliant. Reading it to the end, I felt as though I'd just drawn my first full breath in years. At a moment of collective madness, there is nothing more refreshing - or, indeed, provocative - than sanity. * Sam Harris, author of five New York Times bestsellers and host of the Making Sense podcast. * An abomination * Titania McGrath, author of Woke: A Guide to Social Justice * This is an author who specialises in expressing what everyone sort of knows already and is afraid to say ... well argued, well supported and well observed * Lionel Shriver, The Times * Graceful and witty * Guardian * Necessary and provocative * Evening Standard * Impressive and lively ... Murray's comprehensive survey of the prevailing madness will not persuade every reader. But it raises the real questions of our times. * Roger Scruton, Unherd * Murray's book performs a great service * Financial Times * Fascinating ... Much of what Murray writes is pertinent and hard to disagree with * Sunday Times * Murray is a superbly perceptive guide through the age of the social justice warrior * Daily Telegraph * Murray's book raises urgent questions about how people should conduct themselves in today's age of "wokeness"' * Catholic Herald * Murray's was the third critical interrogation of this subject that I read this summer, and it is the best. * The Times Saturday Review * A profoundly helpful insight on the hysteria of cancel culture. * Saba Douglas-Hamilton for Scottish Field *