AMERICA: THE FAREWELL TOUR by Chris Hedges

I actually read it in late September and early October. Some sections I liked:

The classical world, unlike our own, did not see time as linear. Life was cyclical. It entailed birth, growth, maturation, decay, and death. The concept of inevitable human progress was foreign to ancient societies. What was true for individuals was true for societies.

—chapter 1, "Decay", p. 38, last graf

And as Plato and his pupil Aristotle understood, the building of empire, any empire, extinguishes democracy. Empire requires a centralized bureaucracy. Its complexity mandates a permanent caste of bureaucrats and military leaders who strip the citizenry of power.

—chapter 1, "Decay", p. 39, 3rd graf

Søren Kierkegaard argued that it was the separation of intellect from emotion, from empathy, that doomed Western civilization.

—chapter 7, "Freedom", p. 309, 2nd graf

Just finished Robert O. Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism. Excerpts I liked:

Someone has said that a political party is like a bus: people are always getting on and off.

—Chapter 2, Creating Fascist Movements; section "Recruitment", p. 52

His Storm Troopers aroused both fear and admiration by their readiness to beat up socialists, communists, pacifists, and foreigners.

—Chapter 3, Taking Root; section (2) Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 1928-33; p. 67

On the eve of World War I the major states of Europe were either governed by liberal regimes or seemed headed that way. Liberal regimes guaranteed freedoms both for individuals and for contending political parties and allowed citizens to influence the composition of governments, more of less directly, through elections. Liberal government also accorded a large measure of freedom to citizens and to enterprises. Government intervention was expected to be limited to the few functions individuals could not perform for themselves, such as the maintenance of order and the conduct of war and diplomacy. Economic and social matters were supposed to be left to the free play of individual choices in the market, though liberal regimes did not hesitate to protect property from worker protests and from foreign competition.

—Chapter 3, Taking Root; section Some Other Unsuccessful Fascisms; p. 77

On the eve of World War I, the Action Francaise had enjoyed some success recruiting a few industrial workers to nationalism, and the unexpectedly wide acceptance by workers of their patriotic duty to fight for their homelands when World War I began foretold that in the twentieth century Nation was going to be strong than Class.

—Chapter 4, Getting Power; section What Fascists Offered the Establishment; p. 103

"War is to men as maternity is to women." [[Mussolini quote]]

—Chapter 6, The Long Term: Radicalization or Entropy?; section What Drives Radicalization?, p. 156