The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics

A robust and timely investigation into the political and moral fault-lines that divide Brexit Britain and Trump's America -- and how a new settlement may be achieved. Several decades of greater economic and cultural openness in the West have not benefited all our citizens. Among those who have been left behind, a populist politics of culture and identity has successfully challenged the traditional politics of Left and Right, creating a new division: between the mobile "achieved" identity of the people from Anywhere, and the marginalized, roots-based identity of the people from Somewhere. This schism accounts for the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, the decline of the center-left, and the rise of populism across Europe. David Goodhart's compelling investigation of the new global politics reveals how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests, in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration.

About the Author :
David Goodhart is the founding editor of Prospect magazine and one of the most distinctive voices on British politics today. He is currently head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange, and was previously director of the center-left think tank Demos. His last book The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-War Immigration (2013) was runner-up for the Orwell Prize in 2014 and was a finalist for "Political Book of the Year" in the Paddy Power Political Book Awards. David voted remain in the EU referendum and has been a mainly inactive member of the Labour Party since he was a student.

Review :
"No one has thought more deeply about the relationship between solidarity and diversity in the twenty-first century than David Goodhart. In The Road to Somewhere, he transcends the rhetoric of populism and globalism to make a compelling case for a new vision of community.' -- Michael Lind, author of The Next American Nation "[Goodhart] provides a useful way to think about new cleavages in Britain and elsewhere in the West. Its influence is visible everywhere."--The Economist "[A] provocative take . . . The Road to Somewhere has the feel of a book whose timing . . . is pitch-perfect. --New Statesman "It's a thought-provoking introduction to the deep regional divides exposed by the vote to leave the EU." -- The Guardian "'Whatever other objections Goodhart's new book might provoke, few could call it irrelevant or untimely . . . he returns to this most vexed terrain, picking his way through nettles and thorns that might deter thinner-skinned writers."--Jonathan Freedland, Guardian "David Goodhart offers the best and most complete explanation I've seen for why things seem to be coming apart in so many countries at the same time. If the leaders of Britain and the EU had read The Road to Somewhere twenty years ago, things might look very different today."-- Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind "Shrewd and thoughtful . . . Goodhart offers an impeccably sensible and decent exposition of how the political elites have failed their societies . . . The book makes compelling reading both for voters and those who want to get elected by them."--Max Hastings, Sunday Times "This meticulously researched book . . . enables us to imagine Brexit as a moment that could just prove to be the start of a national renewal." --Prospect "Challenging and illuminating."-- Will Hutton "The existential conflict of our times is not between left and right nor between 'open' and 'closed.' As David Goodhart shows, it is between 'people from Somewhere' and 'people from Anywhere.' This brilliant book will radically change your idea of what is to be progressive in the twenty-first century."- Ivan Krastev "[Goodhart] has written a book that is thoughtful, well argued and dangerously moderate. It may even be an incitement to independent thinking."--The Times, London "'Goodhart has clarity of argument and courage. He has been making these points for a decade and urging the mainstream to engage with them. He does not do fads."--The Observer, London "Goodhart's exploration of this underlying divide ---and the question of what might be done --is not only timely but also offers an accessible, evidence-based and direct account of how these conflicts are reshaping the political world around us."--Matthew Goodwin, Financial Times "A thought-provoking analysis of the social division between footloose, educate'Anywheres' and socially and geographically rooted 'Somewheres' - a cleavage that Goodhart argues is driving the rise of populism in the UK and Europe." - Gideon Rachman, The Financial Times "Brief and lucid... [In The Road to Somewhere] you sense a spirit of fairness and a capacity for self-criticism-and that, surely, is what [its] liberal Anywhere readers need so badly."--Wall Street Journal "Advocating from a left-of-center stance, Goodhart advises the dominant liberal class to address the resistance to the perceived challenge to identity and rootedness lest the populists make ever greater political gains." -- R. P. Peters, Senior Lecturer of Political Science, Univeristy of Massachusetts, Associate of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, CHOICE