The Weaponization of Expertise by Jacob Hale Russell - ISBN: 9780262049597
Hardcover
When experts become weapons, truth dies and populism thrives.

The Weaponization of Expertise

How Elites Fuel Populism

$61.86

  • Hardcover

    336 pages

  • Release Date

    8 April 2025

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Summary

The problem with expertise—and the dark side of the equation “knowledge = power.” Experts are not infallible. Treating them as such has done us all a grave disservice and, as The Weaponization of Expertise makes painfully clear, given rise to the very populism that all-knowing experts and their elite coterie decry. Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson use the devastating example of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate their case, revealing how the hubris of all-too-human experts un…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780262049597
ISBN-10:0262049597
Author:Jacob Hale Russell, Dennis Patterson
Publisher:MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:MIT Press
Format:Hardcover
Number of Pages:336
Release Date:8 April 2025
Weight:567g
Dimensions:229mm x 152mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

Named one of “The Best Books of 2025” by the New Yorker.

The Weaponization of Expertise does not possess (or attempt) the grandeur of The Constitution of Knowledge. Rauch sets out to draft a constitution, whereas Russell and Patterson are merely prosecuting a case. But as a diagnosis of our political predicament, the latter offers the stronger account. CoK is too dismissive of populist discontent to help us make sense of it, and its noble abstractions float too far above the rough-and-tumble of our actual cultural conflicts. Russell and Hale’s seemingly simple story (in brief: elites overreach, populists call them out, elites double down) ultimately described these conflicts in a more realistic and grounded manner.”
—Fusion

About The Author

Jacob Hale Russell

Jacob Hale Russell is Associate Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School.

Dennis Patterson is Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers Law School and Professor of Legal Philosophy at Surrey Law School, UK. He is the author, with Michael Pardo, of Minds, Brains, and Law.

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