Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era
by Susan Neiman (Author) Format: Hardcover
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (26)
Call It Evil is a bold reckoning with one of the most fraught words in our vocabulary. Far from being a religious or outdated concept, evil is a vital lens, Susan Neiman argues, through which to understand the threats we face today.
Neiman is one of our most important philosophers, and one of the world's leading thinkers on the nature and question of evil. She opens this sharp, revelatory work with the idea that the reelection of Donald Trump is the outcome not simply of political and economic forces but the erosion of values that have been subject to derision for more than a century. She goes on to show how we have been quietly bombarded from all sides with messages that undermine basic moral principles. Misreadings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin have led to a view of human nature we now accept as common sense: ideals are for losers, or for politicians who wish to deceive them. Neiman then explores how that ancient view, first formulated by pre-Socratic philosophers, has been steadily promoted by corporate interests and (pseudo) scientists in the modern era. Drawing on history-from European fascism to the moral failures of recent U.S. leaders-she demonstrates how the normalization of evil corrodes trust, destroys justice, and endangers our future.
This is a book for readers who refuse to accept moral confusion as the price of political life, and who believe that confronting evil is the first step toward renewing it.
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[B]racing...[Neiman] argues that our misunderstanding of evil has lulled us into complacency, so that we now take cruelty and corruption for granted.--Jennifer Szalai "New York Times"
Possibly the best book title of 2026, I couldn't agree more with philosopher Susan Neiman's rehabilitation of the word evil, a very useful and necessary descriptor for the times we are living through. Setting millennia of moral philosophy against the livestreamed degradations of the 21st century, Neiman calls it as she sees it, and in so doing traces the dark path that has led us to this evil moment in history.--Jonny Diamond "Literary Hub"
The philosopher Susan Neiman's new book, Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era, is a useful companion to Profiles in Cowardice. Like [Jacob] Weisberg, Neiman wanted to explain why so many institutions caved to Trump. She believes it begins with an ethos that disdains virtue as hypocritical or naïve.--Michelle Goldberg "New York Times"
[A] probing cultural critique...The author effectively challenges American self-boosterism ("every survey of wealthy countries shows the U.S. behind on any measure of well-being") and convincingly defends Enlightenment thought...Neiman movingly evokes Albert Einstein's democratic socialism as a model for moral renewal today... Advocates a return to moral universalism as a panacea for an erosion of values.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
This is not a book about Donald Trump; it is about the conditions that have allowed him to prevail. Neiman has tackled the subject of evil before...but never as compellingly and comprehensively as here...Every sentence is worth reading in this compelling book. For readers who are horrified and want to understand how we got here, this book is an absolute must.-- "Library Journal (starred review)"
[A] potent treatise...Defining evil as 'an idea that arises whenever the gap between the way the world is and the way the world ought to be becomes too big to bear, ' Neiman forcefully argues that the Trump administration warrants the term's usage...The result is a clarifying reflection on the current moment's profound crisis of conscience.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"
Susan Neiman isn't afraid to use moral language while we, still shocked by today's United States, are tempted to sane-wash. But Neiman is stronger, and she says the absolutely right word: evil. Her word bites, as it also sets us back on the road to justice.--Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking
In an age of mealy-mouthed capitulation, Susan Neiman brings bracing moral clarity, erudition and deep thinking to the problem of how to define evil and what to do about it.--Joseph Stiglitz, author of The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society
In a book that is as brilliant as it is bracing, Susan Neiman takes on one of the most fraught of all concepts: evil. The term has been appropriated by those who practice it--a justification for atrocity. But as Neiman reveals in this wonderfully readable and passionately urgent anatomy of the present crisis, those who believe in democracy, law, and morality have to take it back. Call It Evil shows us not just why we should do it but how.--Fintan O'Toole, author of We Don't Know Ourselves
Susan Neiman argues that the Trump era demands a word most of us have been trained to avoid: evil. Not the gothic, tabloid kind, but something more dangerous--the now-common conviction that self-interest is the only real human motive and power is all that matters. Tracing how this cynical worldview got to be called 'common sense, ' Neiman shows why naming it is the first step toward defeating it.--Daniel Kehlmann, author of The Director
Susan Neiman's new book is a revelation--not just a cry of outrage at an immoral American political administration but a cry of outrage at an entire postwar order and its wicked premises: profit, power, and the punishment of the most vulnerable.--James Wood, author of Serious Noticing
How have we fallen so far, so fast? Susan Neiman's brilliant, brave book offers a moral diagnosis without moralizing, explains why, when, and how cynicism corroded our politics, and lights the way to a more hopeful future. This is philosophy in action, and we've never needed it more.--Lorraine Daston
Many describe Donald Trump as evil. Susan Nieman, one of philosophy's reigning experts on evil, affirms that judgment. In lucid prose, she explains how the unfounded view that narrow self-interest drives all behavior has spawned not just Trump but nearly every other serious threat we face.--Robert H. Frank, author of Passions Within Reason
From the Back Cover
Philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the Trump era demands a word most of us have been trained to avoid: evil. Not the gothic, tabloid kind, but something more dangerous -- the now-common conviction that self-interest is the only real human motive and power is all that matters. Tracing how this cynical worldview got to be called common sense, Neiman shows why naming it is the first step toward defeating it. Sharp, urgent and eminently readable, this book will change our understanding of the present crisis.
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Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era
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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date : 2 January 2027
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Susan Neiman
Susan Neiman is an American writer and philosopher. She has written extensively on the juncture between Enlightenment moral philosophy, metaphysics, and politics, both for scholarly audiences and the general public. She currently lives in Berlin.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Neiman dropped out of high school in the general ferment of the late 60s. Reading Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre led her to study philosophy, first as a night student at City College of New York and later at Harvard University, where she earned her Ph.D. under the direction of John Rawls and Stanley Cavell. A Fulbright fellowship took her to Berlin, where she spent six years in the 80s. Slow Fire, a memoir about her life as a Jewish woman in Berlin at the time, won the PEN prize for a first work of non-fiction in 1992. From 1989-1995 she was an assistant and associate professor at Yale University, and from 1996-2000 she was associate professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University. In 2000 she became director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany.
Neiman’s books have been translated into many languages. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Berlin-Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the mother of three grown children.
For further information, reviews and pdfs of shorter works see: www.susan-neiman.de
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From other countries
DavidJ
5.0 out of 5 stars A better definition of evil
Reviewed in the United States on 27 September 2026
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Dr. Neiman gives the reader a much better defintion of evil and why it applies to the Trump administration. The historical and philosophical insights that she provides helps to the reader to see this less as a "Right" vs. "Left" arguement. It's a position of seeing how proganda, fear, and lies are contributing factors to understanding this Era. Dr. Neiman is an excellent narrator of truth and fact. And her writing challenges all of us to do our part.
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Sal Funderburk
5.0 out of 5 stars The Book of the Moment
Reviewed in the United States on 20 September 2026
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Everybody should be reading this book right now. Neiman decries the denial of the reality (and banality!) of evil, of truth, and of the possibility for moral action that has plagued the Left since the end of the Cold War and rendered it ineffectual in the face of the rise of Fascism.
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Diane M. Vendryes
5.0 out of 5 stars Evil is in full force
Reviewed in the United States on 21 September 2026
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
A riveting description of the moral morass we have slipped into.
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@BobbyGvegas
5.0 out of 5 stars An extremely worthy read.
Reviewed in the United States on 15 September 2026
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
I just bought this book this afternoon, and I am deep into it. Delightful. ⭐️ Thomas B, read the book. Carefully.
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