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'The System' and Dystopian Realism – Barry Eisler (DCC88 - Audio)
🕑 Added 2025-06-22 20:44:58 +0000 UTCFormer CIA officer and bestselling author Barry Eisler joins us to discuss his new novel, The System. Here is what I wrote about the book:
The System depicts a fictionalized version of the late US Empire—an economic and military juggernaut now in terminal decline as the regime and its institutions buckle under the weight of their own corrupt and corrupting inertia. With compelling prose, Eisler has written a deep political thriller in which the characters exist in shades of gray. They all must accommodate various governmental and private sector interests in such a way as to become complicit in a system so illegitimate that its true dimensions cannot be candidly discussed or explained in “mainstream” settings. Let us hope that entertaining fiction like this can help snap Americans out of their red/blue partisan trances and unite them against their real enemy—the oligarchic regime itself.
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Special thanks to:
Dana Chavarria, production
Casey Moore, graphics
Michelle Boley, animated intro
Mock Orange, music
Comments
Aaron Good
Arrighi's The Long 20th Century could be useful...
Maenad
Thanks for noticing, this made me gasp too. “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways." Spoken by a dunce of a Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Hindering gov’t is precisely why we have free speech.
Dragos Enachescu
Mr. Good, I need a reading list on the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, French, Dutch, and German empires. I'm looking to understand the transition from feudalism to economic fascism. I'm especially interested in Sir Humphry Psycho. Please recommend some books, I'm currently doing research for my own.
