Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe

“What shines through is Iglesias’s determination to rid the left of its ambivalence towards political power. He ridicules the ‘white knights of the purity of principle,’ too obsessed with theory to actually fight for change.”—Financial Times “Iglesias mixes the serious with the playful, political theory with pop culture. He cites Billy Elliot and The Wire alongside Francis Fukuyama and David Harvey to discuss neoliberalism’s corrosion of the postwar social democratic consensus, Game of Thrones alongside Gramsci to illustrate the meaning of power. The book is aimed at the ‘youth without a future,’ the generation for whom adult life will begin with the considerable difficulty of getting away from the family home.”—Dan Hancox, London Review of Books “There are few precedents for such an explosive political ascent in modern western Europe … Podemos has thrived because it has shredded the old left rulebook.”—Owen Jones “Iglesias and his Podemos party are radically shaking up Spain’s political establishment.”—New York Times “What’s clear from Iglesias’ passionate arguments is that there is another, deeper agenda afoot. Podemos is trying to restore public faith in democracy: in the notion that a party can win power and administer the state without falling under the lure of greed and corruption, and without violating their promises to the electorate or selling out quality public services.” —Hans Rollman, Pop Matters “If there is a single book that embodies the activist left’s turn towards electoral politics it is Pablo Iglesias’s Politics in a Time of Crisis.” —Paul Mason, Guardian