NDPR Allen Buchanan Political Tribalism: How It Hijacks Our Minds and Diminishes Our Humanity

17 views

Skip to first unread message

ndpr...@nd.edu

unread,

Jun 2, 2026, 2:59:31 PM (5 days ago) Jun 2

to philosophical...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu, philosophical-...@nd.edu

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2026.06.2 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Allen Buchanan, Political Tribalism: How It Hijacks Our Minds and Diminishes Our Humanity, Routledge, 2025, 196pp., $45.99 (pbk) ISBN 9781041009603.

Reviewed by Alexander Motchoulski, University of Virginia

Reflecting on the Italian fascism of his childhood some 60 years prior, Umberto Eco remarks that “behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives” (1995). Allen Buchanan’s Political Tribalism: How it Hijacks Our Minds and Diminishes our Humanity picks up Eco’s thread in more ways than one. Buchanan’s subject is growing social and political division, especially in the contemporary American context (20-21). Political relations have become so much more antagonistic. Civility and toleration of disagreement (supposing they were genuinely present to begin with)...