Trueman shows how persons like Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche influenced those advocating LGBTQ+ agendas and marginalize those who disagree with them. The foreward, written by Ryan T. Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, suggests this is a shortened and more accessible version of [The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution]. While it may be shorter, the author still uses vocabulary and complex sentence constructions that may be beyond the grasp of a more popular audience. ( )

From Philosophy to Technology, Tracing the Origin of Identity Politics

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas on religion, free speech, and personal identity.