Chain of ideas : the origins of our authoritarian age / Ibram X. Kendi.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The acclaimed author of How to Be an Antiracist and the National Book Award winner Stamped from the Beginning charts how "great replacement theory" has become a dominant political idea of our time and ushered in an antidemocratic age.

"Kendi argues brilliantly that we must work across race and class lines to eradicate social ills and eliminate fascism."-- Los Angeles Times

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026 BY: The New York Times, Oprah Daily, LitHub, Foreign Policy, The Millions

Recall the words chanted in Charlottesville, Virginia: "You will not replace us!" Recall the string of mass shooters across the globe--in Oslo, Christchurch, Buffalo, El Paso, and Pittsburgh--who claimed their crimes were a defense against "White genocide." Recall business and media figures cultivating anxiety and furor over demographic change. These incidents only scratch the surface: Popular and ruling politicians in every region of the world have expressed some version of great replacement theory, eroding democratic norms in the name of preventing demographic change.

The term was coined in 2011 by a French novelist who argued that Black and Brown immigrants were "invading" Europe, brought by shadowy elites to "replace" the White population. From there, politicians and theorists in the United States and elsewhere repackaged it as a story of "globalists" welcoming "migrant criminals" and promoting diversity to take away the jobs, cultures, electoral power, and very lives of White people. Over time, great replacement theory has expanded those under threat to include citizens, men, Jews, Christians, heterosexuals, and ethnic majorities in countries as distinct as Russia, El Salvador, Brazil, Italy, and India, all targeted with the message that they are facing an existential attack that only a strongman can prevent.

In Chain of Ideas , internationally bestselling author Ibram X. Kendi offers an unsettling but indispensable global history of how great replacement theory brought humanity into this authoritarian age--and how we can free ourselves from it.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Great replacement theory is the ideological beating heart of the new authoritarianism sweeping the globe, according to this brilliant and eye-opening study. Historian and National Book Award winner Kendi (Stamped from the Beginning) notes that countries whose current head of state or opposition leader espouse great replacement theory include the U.S., U.K., Israel, South Korea, India, El Salvador, and "nearly every country in Europe." The term, coined in 2011 by novelist turned right-wing ideologue Renaud Camus, broke into the American political mainstream after the first election of Donald Trump; it posits that shadowy "elites" are "enabling peoples of color to displace... White people" or other privileged or dominant ethnic groups, who thus "now need authoritarian protection." Charting the historic precursors to great replacement theory, beginning with the early 20th-century writings of American eugenicist Madison Grant, Kendi demonstrates the concept's long-standing ties to authoritarianism (Grant's ideas on race were referred to as "my bible" by Adolf Hitler) and convincingly argues that the success of all authoritarians lies in their ability to redirect the legitimate grievances of the exploited away from their class interests and toward paranoid fantasy. Kendi closes with an astute blueprint for combatting this kind of politics that involves bolstering nonprofit media and civic education, though he shrewdly notes that "nothing minimizes the draw of great replacement theory like radically improving societal conditions." It adds up to a rousing call for solidarity across lines of class and race in order to fight fascism. (Mar.)

Kirkus Book Review

An exploration of the arguably premier racist trope of our time. "To be racist," writes Kendi--author ofHow To Be an Antiracist (2019) andStamped From the Beginning (2016)--"is to see peoples of color aseternal immigrants….To be racist is to see White people aseternal natives." That much was implicit in the white supremacist chant heard in Charlottesville, Virginia, and elsewhere about "X will not replace us," whether Jews, Muslims, immigrants, or what have you. As others have done, Kendi traces this "great replacement theory" to French writer Renaud Camus, who "trailblazed literary space for gay novelists and poets" but then--convinced that his largely rural region was being overrun by Africans and Arabs--elaborated what a predecessor called "the chain of ideas" to link unbridled immigration to a deliberate plot to make French whites a minority in their own country by a process of "ethnic substitution." Camus' favored terms for these newcomers--among them "'colonizers,' 'occupiers,' 'criminals,' and most of all "invaders'"--will sound familiar to anyone paying attention to statements made by President Trump. By Kendi's account, the president is quite comfortable with racist ideology, courtesy in part of Steve Bannon, who once told a French audience to wear the name "racist" as "a badge of honor." Of course, the usual ploy of racists is to deny being racist--but, Kendi adds, in Trump's case an executive order actually turned the tables by defining antiracism as "divisive," even as Trump railed against "anti-white racism" and dismantled federal DEI initiatives. The majority of GOP voters now subscribe to the great replacement theory, by Kendi's account, led by politicians who are, in his opinion, nothing short of neo-Nazis in fact if not in name. The answer? For a start, Kendi urges, "nothing minimizes the draw of great replacement theory like radically improving societal conditions." A well-formed argument against the fashionably fascist thought that houses old wine in new skins. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.