Audiobooks by John Ganz

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When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists and the Road to Trump’s America

Brought to you by Penguin. THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER PICK A rollicking, revelatory look at the tumult of the early 1990s and the rise of a new, more berserk America that birthed the Donald Trump Era ‘When the Clock Broke is leagues more insightful on the subject of Trump’s ascent than most writing that purports to address the issue directly’ Washington Post ‘Terrific . . . Vibrant . . . When the Clock Broke is one of those rarest of books: unflaggingly entertaining while never losing sight of its moral core’ New York Times With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated and US power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a ‘kinder, gentler America.’ Instead, it was a period of punishing economic hardship, rising anger and domestic strife, setting the tone for the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. The early 1990s climate of despair was weaponized by con men, conspiracists and racists – notably the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke – both in the wider culture and at the ballot box. In other words, they sought to ‘break the clock’ of progress and ‘repeal the twentieth century’. They gave Americans’ resentment a shape and direction, and forged a new kind of paranoid, conspiratorial politics where harmless roguishness and vicious hate became mixed up, as well as declaring a culture war on liberal elites. It was in this moral confusion that the ‘indigenous American berserk’, as Philip Roth put it, took on new and ever-wilder forms. In this rollicking, original and often hilarious book, John Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of the conspiratorial politics that birthed Donald Trump’s America. One of the Washington Post’s 10 Best Books of 2024 One of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2024 Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2024 © John Ganz 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

John Ganz (Author), Eric Jason Martin (Narrator)

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When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s

A lively, revelatory look back at the convulsions at the end of the Reagan era—and their dark legacy today. With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con” right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk” took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals” whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long. In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.

John Ganz (Author), Eric Jason Martin, TBD (Narrator)

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