Against the Web
by Michael Brooks

From Michael Brooks, host of The Michael Brooks Show and co-host of the Majority Report, comes the first book to directly respond to the Intellectual Dark Web and Jordan Peterson.

Michael Brooks against the "Intellectual Dark Web."

As the host of The Michael Brooks Show and co-host of the Majority Report, Brooks was a progressive fighter whose work brought people together from around the world. In this, his first book, he lets his understanding of the digital media environment direct his analysis of the "conservative rebels" who had taken YouTube by storm in 2018.

Brooks provides a theoretically rigorous but accessible critique of the most prominent "renegades" including Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Brett Weinstein while also examining the social, political and media environment that such rebels thrive in.

'A brilliant critique of the Right with very sharp insight on some of the shortcomings of the Left, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand how dishonest actors spread their propaganda.'

Ana Kasparian, Host and Executive Producer of The Young Turks

Reviews:
Michael called out the nonsense of the so-called Intellectual Dark Web well before anyone else caught onto their cynical games. A brilliant critique of the Right with very sharp insight on some of the shortcomings of the Left, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand how dishonest actors spread their propaganda. ~ Ana Kasparian, Host and Executive Producer of The Young Turks

You don't know it yet, but this is the book you've been waiting for. Reading Michael Brooks' devastating and insightful account of the IDW feels like a breath of fresh air. He meticulously and expertly challenges the shallow platitudes and certainties of a certain cohort of "public intellectuals" by pulling away the curtain of "logic and reason" behind which these men (and yes, they are all men) hide their juvenile arguments. Yet Brooks does not just rebut and break down--he offers a humane and compassionate counterargument. He takes seriously the IDW's vast and hungry audience and suggests that left thinkers offer them camaraderie and not just self-delusion and justification. He also takes the left to task for the way they react to these provocations, but he maintains a sense of proportionality. He does not equivocate or engage in "both sideism." This is a must-read for anyone who has been puzzled by the appeal of the IDW or anyone seduced by their ideas. ~ Mehrsa Baradaren, Author of the Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

Michael Brooks has distinguished himself as one of the most intellectually honest and insightful commentators of the populist left. In this essential book, he takes the best arguments of the Intellectual Dark Web, puts them in historical context, and clinically breaks them apart piece by piece. If you want to understand where American and world politics may be headed, you need to understand the online right. And if you want to understand the online right, you need to read Against the Web. ~ Krystal Ball, Co-Host of The Hill’s Rising

Michael Brooks offers us a polemic focused on the battle for ideas. This book is not a discussion of this or that issue but of worldview and narrative. Michael rips away the sophistry inherent in the prevailing right-wing narratives but then offers a humble, explicitly leftist alternative framework. In offering a left framework he also does battle with some of the key toxicities within the US Left that undermine our collective efforts to build a movement for fundamental social transformation. This book left me thinking; which is what I have come to expect from Michael Brooks. ~ Bill Fletcher, Jr., Editor of globalafricanworker.com, former president of TransAfrica Forum, author and activist

Against the Web, is a welcome widening of Michael Brooks’ perceptive and incisive work. Easily one of the smartest and most informed commentators on his daily on his web show and podcast TMBS, he has now expanded, and deepened, his political analysis to book form. With his rare internationalist perspective and passionate commentary, this book provides a crucial guide to the prevailing political landscape of our time. Both the worst temptations of the online IDW pseudo arguments, while also making smart critiques of his own “side”, this book is original and needed ~ Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept