Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler's new book re-examines the recent course of American politics. They tell us about how authoritarian politics - especially on the right - have helped give rise to increasing polarization between Republicans and Democrats. This is an important contribution to debate among political scientists about polarization, but deserves a much wider readership. If they are right - and the differences between authoritarians and non-authoritarians are the key factor driving polarized politics - then many of the received wisdoms of the punditocracy are flat out wrong. Right wing columnists like Michael Gerson and Clive Crook, who deplore the increasing extremism of American politics and especially of the left, are missing out on the ways in which right wing politics are increasingly based around authoritarianism and intolerance.

Steve Teles' book provides a great, readable analysis of how pro-market conservatives organized themselves against a legal profession and legal academy that they perceived as biased against them, and succeeded in changing it. It is reminiscent of other books on the rise of the right, such as Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm, but concentrates on a much more specialized group of actors. Rightwing non-profit law firms have succeeded, at least in part, in bringing cases that raised attention for key regulatory issues. Rightwing funders provided the means that allowed legal academics to pioneer 'law and economics,' an approach to legal analysis that has become ever more important in influencing academic analyses, legal decisions and governmental regulatory priorities. Finally, the Federalist Society has allowed conservative lawyers to identify each other and to network (as seen, for example, in the controversies over Justice Department hiring practices under George W. Bush).

Cory Doctorow has a multitude of talents. He's a co-editor of BoingBoing, the fifth most popular blog on the Internet according to Technorati, where he purveys a mixture of technology news, links to strange and wonderful things, and left wing politics. He's been a front line fighter in the wars over intellectual property; he used to be the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Director of European Affairs.

Chait has, in the past, been blisteringly rude about the netroots (some of whom have also been blisteringly rude about him). While the netroots are not a major topic of this book, he takes a couple of swipes against them here too. However, it would be a serious mistake for netroots readers to ignore this book, or think that it has nothing to teach them.