Joanna Williams - How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement that Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason

HOW WOKE WON

THE ELITIST MOVEMENT THAT THREATENS
DEMOCRACY, TOLERANCE AND REASON

How Woke Won

Joanna Williams 2022

Joanna Williams has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

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ISBNs:
Paperback: 978-1-739841324
Ebook: 978-1-739841331

A spiked publication in partnership with John Wilkes Publishing

spiked-online.com

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Cover design: Alex Dale
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Joanna Williams is a columnist at spiked and a frequent contributor to a range of publications including The Times, the Spectator and the Telegraph. After over a decade in academia, she left to set up her own think tank, Cieo, which provides a platform for research and debates that universities dare not touch. How Woke Won is Joannas fourth book. Her previous work has explored academic freedom, feminism and higher education.

Photography: Rahil Ahmad

Joanna Williams has consistently and courageously spoken out against the woke fundamentalists attempting to reshape our society according to their own narrow and unrepresentative worldview. This book provides a searing assessment of how the West succumbed to such a pernicious ideology. It deserves the widest attention.

Paul Embery, author of Despised

Joanna Williams has written a highly readable and gripping anatomy of the woke phenomenon which is poisoning our intellectual, social and political life. As she shows, it has gained a grip over many public institutions, from primary schools to universities, the civil service and cultural institutions. She tells the story of how this has happened, and explains why: because this ideology empowers the elite that runs a large part of our lives, and wants to run more. Its a worrying story of intimidation and moral blackmail. But she holds out the hope that wokes victory need not be permanent. In this brave and lucid book, she has done us a great service.

Robert Tombs, emeritus professor of French history, University of Cambridge, and author of The English and Their History

Joanna Williams is one of Britains sharpest and most eloquent writers on the woke phenomenon. In How Woke Won, she fearlessly and forensically exposes how the woke culture war has exploded into our schools, workplaces, media and politics and why we need to fight back against this very real threat to our values and our freedoms.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, journalist and talkRADIO presenter

How has it come to pass that gender ideology and critical race theory have become the dominant moral orthodoxies? How Woke Won is a thoughtful, lucid read that provides answers. If youve ever wondered why our cultural elites have been hoodwinked by something so conspicuously ideological that sows division among ordinary people, wonder no more. The answer lies within.

Peter Boghossian, author of How to Have Impossible Conversations

Too often when people talk about the woke capture of our elite institutions they do so with an air of resignation, as if our only hope of reversing this process is to embark on a long march in the opposite direction. Not Joanna Williams. In this book, she argues convincingly that this authoritarian cult isnt as powerful as it seems and if the champions of liberal values band together it can be defeated.

Toby Young, founder and director of the Free Speech Union

Williams has produced an awesome study that really digs deep into the woke phenomenon. After reading this book you will be left in no doubt about the corrosive and divisive impact of wokism on public life.

Frank Furedi, author and emeritus professor of sociology, University of Kent

How Woke Won is an urgent reminder of how deep the trenches in the culture war are. It is an important pushback in the direction of genuinely progressive politics. Williams dissects woke thinking and in doing so puts ordinary people first. An incisive, brave and galvanising compendium on the culture war.

Laura Dodsworth, author of A State of Fear

This is a thoughtful, well-measured and powerfully argued book on the phenomenon of woke, exploring what it is and how it came to capture our institutions so completely that to even question its prevalence can be a career-threatening move.

Iain Dale, author and LBC radio presenter

How Woke Won challenges the damaging, one-dimensional narrative that divides the world into victims and oppressors. As Joanna shows, being black doesnt make me a victim. Few people have hatred within them, making the terms of the current debate as dictated by the new establishment divisive and alienating. This book exposes the tactics and contradictions of an elitist minority trying to demonise the rest of us.

Dominique Samuels, political commentator, broadcaster and writer

This brilliantly written and compelling book is as important as it is distressing. This is a must-read for anyone who values freedom and worries about the direction of Western society. I couldnt put it down. Grab a copy before it gets cancelled.

Mark Dolan, GB News presenter and stand-up comedian

This book is the essential guide for our era of confusion and incoherence as moral revolutionaries tear down statues, institutions and widely held values. With clear thinking and gripping storytelling, Williams explains how a minority of the elites in Britain and America were able to intimidate the rest of the elites into silence or complicity, imposing a revolution from above that is anti-democratic and cruel. Anyone who wants to restore sanity, beauty or simple humanity to our public life should read How Woke Won.

Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley professor of ethical leadership, New York University Stern School of Business, author of The Righteous Mind, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind

Many people have helped make this book happen. Viv Regan, spikeds managing editor, has encouraged me more than she can ever know. Not only did she conjure up a brilliant publishing company for me to work with, but she also gave me great feedback on my messy first drafts and kept me going when the task ahead seemed too onerous. Tom Slater has been the best editor any author could hope to work with. His commitment to the broader political project that lies behind this work, as well as his incredible eye for detail, helped shape the arguments, pinpoint examples and make the text coherent. His editorship of