Summary
From one of the most admired international leaders, comes a timely, considered, and personal look at the history and current resurgence of fascism today and the virulent threat it poses to international freedom, prosperity, and peace.
At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly thirty years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to re-emerge on the global stage--sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States--that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.
Based on her personal experience growing up in Hungary under Hitler and the Communist regime that followed World War II, as well as knowledge gleaned from her distinguished diplomatic career and insights from colleagues around the globe, Albright paints a clear picture of how fascism flourishes and explains why it is once again taking hold worldwide, identifying the factors contributing to its rise. Most importantly, she makes clear what could happen if we fail to act against rising fascist forces today and in the near future, including the potential for economic catastrophe, a lasting spike in terrorist activity, increased sectarian violence, a rash of large-scale humanitarian emergencies, massive human rights violations, a breakdown in multilateral cooperation, and nearly irreparable self-inflicted damage to America's reputation and capacity to lead.
Albright also offers clear solutions, including adjusting to the ubiquity of social media and the changing nature of the workplace, and understanding ordinary citizens' universal desire for sources of constancy and morality in their lives. She contends that we must stimulate economic growth and narrow the gap between the rich and poor, urban and rural, women and men, and skilled and unskilled; work across borders to respond to transnational challenges; and ultimately recognize that democracy's unique virtue is its ability--through reason and open debate--to find remedies for its own shortcomings.
Madeleine Korbelová Albright was born May 15, 1937 in the Smíchov district of Prague, Czechoslovakia. She attended Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on a full scholarship, majoring in political science and graduated in 1959. Her senior thesis was written on Czech Communist Zdenek Fierlinger Her PhD is from Columbia University. She holds honorary degrees from Brandeis University; the University of Washington; Smith College; University of Winnipeg; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , and Knox College. Albright worked as an intern for The Denver Post and as a picture editor for Encyclopædia Britannica. She was invited to organize a fund-raising dinner for the 1972 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Ed Muskie of Maine.This association with Muskie led to a position as his chief legislative assistant in 1976. However, after the 1976 U.S. presidential election of Jimmy Carter, Albright's former professor Brzezinski was named National Security Advisor, and recruited Albright from Muskie in 1978 to work in the West Wing as the National Security Council's congressional liaison. Albright joined the academic staff at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1982, specializing in Eastern European studies. In 1992, Bill Clinton returned the White House to the Democratic Party, and Albright was employed to handle the transition to a new administration at the National Security Council. In January 1993, Clinton nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Albright soon took office as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State on January 23, 1997 and she became the first female U.S. Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. Albright now serves as a Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. Her title Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012. Her most recent book is Fascism: A Warning.
(Bowker Author Biography)
