Christopher Rufo offers a history of the left
America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. By Christopher Rufo. Broadside Books; 352 pages; $32. To be published in Britain in September; £25 The American left’s political philosophy may lack a plain name—what some call wokeness, others call identity politics, critical race theory (CRT) or anti-racism—but it does have a chief sceptic.
Christopher Rufo, a former film-maker and conservative writer employed by the Manhattan Institute, a think-tank, rose to prominence in 2020 by documenting the encroachment of progressive ideas into American school curriculums. More than anyone outside elected office except perhaps Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News anchor, Mr Rufo (pictured right) has served as a mastermind of the right’s attacks on the left. He brought attention to CRT (the teaching of systemic racism as a cause of inequality), inspiring Donald Trump to issue an executive order in 2020 banning it in federal departments and contracts.
Mr Rufo is now zeroing in on other divisive issues, such as gender and sexuality. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a close follower of Mr Rufo’s work, hopes to surf the waves of anti-woke animus to the White House. He may not be name-checked in the presidential contest of 2024, but Mr Rufo will influence many Republican candidates and the subjects they rage against.
For obvious reasons Mr Rufo’s new book has been attracting great interest. But readers may be surprised that it is more of an origin story than a polemic. “America’s Cultural Revolution" is an intellectual history of the critical theories, generally Marxist in origin, that emerged decades ago and which, in Mr Rufo’s persuasive and well-written telling, morphed into today’s theory of social
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