Applied Knowledge

Applied Knowledge

Home
Book Reviews
Books in Action
Dissident Spotlight
Archive
About

Books: Politics, History, & Social

How to Maintain a Stable Government
Robust institutions must constantly be guarded from elite capture. Diverting the government away from its public mission is a reliable way to radicalize…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
How Crowds Go Wrong
William Bernstein's exploration of periods of mass hysteria shows how we fall for convenient stories and badly project the future.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
How Flexible Ideologies Contribute to Political Success
The Chinese Communist Party is not a model for democratic movements, but the CCP's history shows how political movements succeed or fail.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Why More Information is Bad for Us
Yuval Noah Harari's history of information shows how much more important the use of information is than producing more of it.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
What is Politics For, Anyway?
Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order paints a clear picture of why the politics we practice today is a huge improvement over the…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Who Government Workers Really Are
The federal government is more than just the clerks working in government buildings. Some of them have solved intractable problems and built meaningful…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Lessons from the War that Haunted the Founding Fathers
The Thirty Years War was a devastating religious conflict that was fought in Germany but engulfed Europe. It was also one reason separating government…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
How to Avoid Drawing the Wrong Picture of the World
Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign had flaws in its leadership and operations that anyone who wants to see the world more clearly can learn from.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Why Anti-Intellectualism Still Haunts American Politics
Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book produces as accurate reflection of 2025’s political climate as it did in 1962.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
If You Make It Trend, You Make It True
Renee DiResta's investigation offers a stark warning about the trustworthiness of the content they read online - even beyond the usual concerns about…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Why Liberalism Still Matters
As extremists call liberalism outdated, Fukuyama argues it’s still the best system for peace and dignity amid deep political divides.
 • Christopher Gerlacher
Free Speech’s Double-Edged Champions and Other Challenges
Tolerance for dissent has a long history of overcoming censorship, hypocrisy, and a never-ending fight for the freedom to describe the world as one sees…
 • Christopher Gerlacher
© 2026 Christopher Gerlacher · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture