The United States has never had a president quite like Donald J. Trump. He violated every rule of conventional presidential campaigns to win a race that almost no one, including at times he himself, thought he would win. In so doing, Trump set off cataclysmic shock waves across the country and world that have not subsided and are unlikely to as long as he remains in office. Critics of Trump abound, as do anonymously sourced speculations about his motives, yet the real man behind this unprecedented presidency remains largely unknown. In this innovative analysis, American presidency scholar and trained psychoanalyst Stanley Renshon reaches beyond partisan narrative to offer a serious and substantive examination of Trump’s real psychology and controversial presidency. He analyzes Trump as a preemptive president trying to become transformative by initiating a Politics of American Restoration. Rigorously grounded in both political science and psychology scholarship, The Real Psychology of the Trump Presidency offers a unique and thoughtful perspective on our controversial 45th president.

Will President Trump destroy civilization or win the Nobel Peace Prize? Never before have the nuclear codes been in the hands of a man who many observers view as unstable and erratic. The 24 experts who contributed to this book analyze President Trump's behavior hoping to provide insights into what may be the most urgent question of our time.

We live in the era of the digital revolution characterized by easy access to obtaining, processing and disseminating information on a global scale. The emergence of these global digital spaces has transformed the world of communication. This shift in our understanding of what we should be informed about, when and how, manifests itself not only within mature liberal democracies, which grant their citizens and the media constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and rights associated with obtaining information, but also within developing countries with different types of political establishments. Moreover, many media producers, especially journalists and persons claiming to be journalists, abuse their crucial mission and, instead, foster a set of serious communication phenomena that threaten basic human rights and freedoms, weaken them or decelerate their development. The publication is focused on the ways fake news, disinformation, misinformation and hateful statements are spread across society, predominantly within the online environment. Its main ambition is to offer an interdisciplinary body of scholarly knowledge on fake news, disinformation and propaganda in relation to today’s journalism, social development, political situation and cultural affairs happening all around the world.

"American history buffs will savor this detailed yet accessible roundup of political imbroglios." —Publishers Weekly Political scandals have become an indelible feature of the American political system since the creation of the republic more than two centuries ago. In his previous book, Libertines: American Political Sex Scandals from Alexander Hamilton to Donald Trump, Michael Martinez explored why public figures sometimes take extraordinary risks, sullying their good names, humiliating their families, placing themselves in legal jeopardy, and potentially destroying their political careers as they seek to gratify their sexual desires. In Scoundrels, Martinez examines thirteen of the most famous (or infamous) and not-so-famous political scandals of other sorts in American history, including the Teapot Dome case from the 1920s, the Watergate break-in and cover-up in the 1970s, the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, and Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Combining riveting storytelling with insights into 200 years of American political corruption, Martinez has once again written a book that will enlighten all readers interested in human nature and political history.

Bestselling author, therapist, lawyer, and mediator Bill Eddy describes how dangerous, high-conflict personalities have gained power in governments worldwide—and what citizens can do to keep these people out of office. Democracy is under siege. The reason isn't politics but personalities: too many countries have come under the sway of high-conflict people (HCPs) who have become politicians. Most of these high-conflict politicians have traits of narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial (i.e., sociopathic) personality disorder, or both. This is the first and only guide for identifying and thwarting them. HCPs don't avoid conflict, they thrive on it, widening social divisions and exacerbating international tensions. Eddy, the world's leading authority on high-conflict personalities, explains why they're so seductive and describes the telltale traits that define HCPs—he even includes a helpful list of forty typical HCP behaviors. Drawing on historical examples from Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Nixon to Trump, Maduro, and Putin, Eddy shows how HCPs invent enemies and manufacture phony crises so they can portray themselves as the sole heroic figure who can deal with them, despite their inability to actually solve problems. He describes the best ways to expose HCPs as the charlatans they are, reply to their empty and misleading promises, and find genuine leaders to support. Eddy brings his deep psychotherapeutic experience to bear on a previously unidentified phenomena that presents a real threat to the world.

This book discusses the seminal role played by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, in the founding of American-style public relations – persuasive communication through manipulation of symbols – and his huge (and cynical) impact on the American economic and political scene. It provides a substantiated and convincing explanation for what is happening today in Donald Trump’s America. In the form of a history of ideas, the book makes clear that the present Trumpian manipulation of democracy and what it means to be American has a long pre-history and continues to go through different phases, involving the cultivation and institutionalisation of strong bonds between business and politics. The book shows how this is intimately linked with a science, intellectualism and practice informed by a series of binary oppositions in human action and interaction (e.g. rationality and irrationality, reason and emotion, mind and body, brain and heart, insider and outsider, us and them) and how unpredictable human nature really is. It makes a convincing argument that being human depends on how successfully we are able to negotiate such apparently contradictory binaries with the intricacies and dynamism of human agency. It is rich and thought provoking and very timely, given the exclusionary politics of fear, anger, hate and nativism we see unfolding not only in the USA but all over the world.

Vision, Reality and Complex brings together a rich selection of Thomas Singer’s scholarship on the development of the cultural complex theory and explores the relationship between vision, reality, and illusion in politics and psyche. The chapters in this book discuss the basic principles of the cultural complex theory in various national and international contexts that span the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump eras. Each chapter grounds this theory in practical examples, such as race and healthcare in the United States, or in specific historical and international conflicts between groups, whether they be ethnic, racial, gender, local, national or global. With chapters on topics including mythology, leadership, individuation, revolution, war, and the soul, Singer’s work provides unique insights into contemporary culture, activism, and politics. This collection of essays demonstrates how the cultural complex theory applies in specific contexts while simultaneously having cross-cultural relevance through the reemergence of complexes throughout history. It is essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, politics, sociology, and international studies, as well as for practicing and trainee analysts alike.

Interest in Fromm is increasing: as a prominent Marxist, sociologist, psychoanalytic theorist, and public intellectual, the unique normative-humanist thrust of his writings provides a crucial critical reference point for those seeking to understand and transcend the societal pathologies of our age. The essays in this volume retrieve, revive, and expand upon Fromm's central insights and contributions. They offer a critical theory of culture, the self, psychology and society that goes beyond what is typical of the narrower concerns of the fragmented and isolated disciplines of today, demonstrating the pan-disciplinary potential of Fromm's work. But this book does not simply reassert Fromm's ideas and rehash his theories, but rather reconstructs them to bring them into meaningful dialogue with contemporary ideas and cultural, political and economic developments. Providing new approaches to Fromm's ideas and work brings them up-to-date with contemporary problems and debates in theory and society and helps us understand the challenges of our times.

Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America explores many of the cultural complexes that comprise the collective psychic-filtering system of emotions, ideas, and beliefs that possess the United States today. With chapters by an international selection of leading authors, the book covers ideas both broad and specific, and presents unique insight into the current state of the nation. The voices included in this volume amplify contemporary concerns, linking them to themes which have existed in the American psyche for decades while also looking to the future. Part One examines meta themes, including history, purity, dominion, and democracy in the age of Trump. Part Two looks at key complexes including race, gender, the environment, immigration, national character, and medicine. The overall message is that it is in wrestling with these complexes that the soul of America is forged or undone. This highly relevant book will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, politics, sociology, and American studies. It will also be of great interest to Jungian analysts in practice and in training, and anyone interested in the current state of the US.