In Erasing History, Jason Stanley exposes the ways authoritarian regimes manipulate historical narratives to maintain power. He provides compelling examples from around the world, showing how political leaders restrict access to historical truths by banning books, censoring curricula, and criminalizing educators who challenge official narratives.
Stanley demonstrates how attacks on education and historical memory support authoritarianism, undermining public understanding of past struggles for justice.
By showing how history is weaponized to advance political agendas, Stanley underscores the importance of preserving historical truth as a safeguard against authoritarian rule.
Stanley doesn’t just diagnose the problem — he also offers strategies to resist these attacks, from advocating for historical literacy to supporting educators under fire.
Erasing History is an essential read for educators, activists, and anyone concerned with attacks on antiracist education and the rising threat of fascism.
Stanley’s book serves as both a warning and a call to action. [Description from Rethinking Schools.]
We are honored that in the book, Stanley writes:
An organization like the Zinn Education Project is on the front lines of the war to defend progressive education, seeking to preserve the history of resistance against hierarchies of class, race, and gender against those who aim to erase it. It also seeks to call attention to these attacks, and the larger anti-democratic movement of which they are a part. Even in these grim times for democracy, there remains ample room for hope.
ISBN: 9781668056912 | Atria/One Signal Publishers
Jason Stanley spoke about the book on Democracy Now! on February 21, 2025, “Erasing History” from the U.S. to Germany: “Wars Are Won by Teachers,” Says Yale Prof. Jason Stanley.
Endorsements
I’ve never read a book that is as timely, urgent and essential as this one. Erasing History is, at this moment, the only source of knowledge I know of that is a sort of battle plan for keeping this nation from falling into fascism. You must read this book. — Khalil Gibran Muhammad
Jason Stanley’s engaging work has taught people in the 21st century the anatomy of fascism as a political system. In Erasing History, Stanley dissects the ideological components of the fascist assault on historical teaching, memory, and analysis. He shows how everything from the antisemitic Great Replacement Theory to the vilification of gay people and feminists to the promotion of myths of national purity and historical innocence all work to demolish democratic agency and freedom. But he leaves us with the sense that those who fight for the past can save the future. — Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Jason Stanley is the essential voice for anyone seeking an unflinching account of the fascist dimensions of the current moment. Erasing History delivers a vital decoding of the wide-ranging effort of a small but well-organized and well-resourced faction seeking to consolidate power by censoring knowledge and rewriting the past. — Kimberlé Crenshaw
Erasing History is both sequel and prequel to Jason Stanley’s invaluable How Fascism Works, a sweeping survey of this global fascist moment’s anti-education tide. From India to Turkey, from Russia to Florida — and maybe soon in a classroom near you — gross declarations of supremacist nationalism are becoming awful substitutes for historical inquiry. Erasing History, fast-paced and up-to-the-minute, tells us how it’s happening and why the past is a frontline in the struggle for a future free of fascism. — Jeff Sharlet
Simply put, Stanley has laid out the blueprint for the worldwide fascist attack on history. A must-read to fight authoritarianism and disinformation. — Anthea Butler
Why are so many actors on the radical right laying siege to our schools? Hint: it’s far more serious than current reporting conveys. In this powerful book, Jason Stanley deftly interweaves his family’s experience under Nazi rule with a far-reaching, lucid explanation of why authoritarians hate honest history. A must read to understand how much truth telling matters for multiracial democracy to withstand the siege. — Nancy MacLean
Jason Stanley has done it again. This urgent, piercing, and altogether brilliant book exposes how the fight to learn from our past is ultimately a fight about the promise of our future. Erasing History unpacks the imperative story of our time: how authoritarianism aims to collapse history into a single, drab, monololithic narrative. And how the fight for freedom is one that requires us to disrupt that telling through continued, collective reflection and re-imagination. — Jonathan M. Metzl
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