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The Fallout: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence | 
| Author: Andrew Anthony
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 9531
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0099507854
EAN: 9780099507857
ASIN: 0099507854
Publication Date: September 4, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
Common sense is back in fashion... November 16, 2008
In this book, part autobiography, part polemic, Andrew Anthony examines how it is that the left finds itself allied with forces of oppression and against democracy. He uses his own journey from leftism to liberalism in order to relate to the issue. Anthony states that he is still a liberal yet, as someone that considers themselves conservative, I agree with nearly every word. Does this make me a closet liberal or him a closet conservative?
My only nagging doubt was this. For years conservative commentators and politicians have been elbowed out of various debates (Europe, immigration, welfareism, multiculturalism) by those on the left who would merely add a pejorative suffix to their opponents position (-ist,-ism,-phobia) in order to close down the debate. Indeed, try to get a Conservative politician to express an opinion on these subjects and there will be a deafening silence. So where were the liberals when this assault on free speech was taking place?
It is only now, with liberals finding themselves to the right of leftists who are triyng to silence them, do the liberals speak out. 'Then they came for me'
That doubt aside, this is an excellent read for those who would like to see a dose of common sense back in public and politcal life.
 Good but not an easy read November 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
An insiders insight into the thinking of left wing intellectuals and how they try to distort reality to fit their view of the world rather than face facts and deal with life as it is. Indirectly it explains why New Labour and its allies in the EU have failed to make the lives of ordinary people better. Definitely worth reading for anyone interested in contemporary politics or concerned about the rise of the new totalitarianism in Europe.
However, I found the style a hard read and often needed to go over piece two or three times before understanding it. The content is excellent, but his prose retains much of the heaviness and convoluted style common to left wing writers as they juggle their words to sidestep inconvenient truths.
Another step in the correct direction August 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As another liberal who has been appalled by attitudes on the Left and among self-proclaimed 'liberals', I welcome this robust and well written study. Like Nick Cohen's incisive analysis of the Left and how it has strayed far from its own principles, Anthony's book paints a very personal progress from the old left towards a more authentically liberal position. The use of 9/11 as a turning-point for his own reflections and as a date from which so much anti-American sentiment began on the left serves as a useful measurement for change. My own strong interest (and most of the work I do) centres on Islamism and Islamic terrorism, and I found Anthony's strongly-expressed concern with this issue and the issues that arise from it (particularly a Leftist defence of people who are anti-democratic, anti-women, anti-free speech, etc.) an important part of this work. The one thing he did not really tackle was Israel, and the way in which the modern Left has used anti-Israelism to revive a vicious anti-Semitism. (On which see this profound and elegant study by philosopher Bernard Harrison The Resurgence of Anti-semitism: Jews, Israel and Liberal Opinion (Philosophy and the Global Context)). If Andrew Anthony ever produces a new edition of this book, I hope he will consider the issue of left-wing anti-Semitism and the very real betrayal it represents. But do read his book and be prepared to have your eyelids unstuck.
Every word and suggestion of subject I am in utter agreement and have total admiration for this work... March 18, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'll be brief... I read an article in The Observer and it was fantastic, cutting through the fog of my liberal and shepherded politics. So ordered the book... I am now confident in my beliefs, standing up and echoing Anthony's work. This is not a piece for the idealist or the naive it is a book for the British citizen who believes in the human above all. I applaud the author and wish him all the accolades one can.
Standard reading February 18, 2008
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I have read numerous critiques of today's left (Marxist liberals) mainly by authors - with the exception of e.g. David Horowitz and Christopher Hitchens - organically detached from their subject. Be this as it may, I agreed with one writer who described today's left not so much as a political viewpoint but rather a pathology, a distorted frame of mind fuelled and characterised by hatred, absurdity and anger. Andrew Anthony's constructive and thoughtful critique re-affirms this viewpoint. His politics stem from an internalised, experiential liberal conviction that has its roots in pre - 1989 international solidarity, a standard tenet that is lost on much of today's left. In the light of the left's - particularly the SWP and its ilk - descent into blind hatred of anything Western since 9/11, Mr Anthony has held up his liberal views for personal scrutiny. Set starkly against the present dominant strand of liberalism's mystifying solidarity with terrorists, dictatorships and total disregard for the socially obvious, he has exposed and disossiated from the politically disfigured beast it has become. I have just completed a BSc in Social Science that was tiresomely infested with elements of this disfigurement at a sociological level. Mr Anthony's excellent book would have been a refreshing antedote to the know-nothing postmodernist drivel I was obliged to read. In other words, The Fallout should be standard reading in any social science department worth its salt. Sadly, the hatred and disfigurement referred to above also blinds judgement. Therefore the likelihood of an even minded course author ever placing this book on a university library bookshelf is nil. This said, it's a book that should not sit idle on a bookshelf anyway nor should it be at the mercy of a univerisity lecturer's prejudice. Once read it should be passed on to other open minded, reflective liberals as a means to spreading much needed enlightenment in these days of postmodernist darkness.
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