On Point: Low Dishonest Decades, by John Andrews

John Andrews draws contemporary lessons from four recent books charting Europe's slide toward war in the 1920s and 1930s. [View this message in a web browser]( [PS On Point]( FEBRUARY 26, 2021 Former US President Donald Trump is not Hitler, and America is not the Weimar Republic. But, as four excellent recent books about the interwar years show, false narratives and craven political choices can have dreadful consequences that may not emerge immediately, writes John Andrews, a former editor and foreign correspondent for The Economist. [Read more](. On Point: Global Bookmark [Low Dishonest Decades]( [Low Dishonest Decades]( By John Andrews Myriad political and economic factors, together with muddled leadership, eroded democratic institutions and enfeebled governments across Europe between 1918 and 1939. No one today can say how the damage wrought by former US President Donald Trump and his populist acolytes in Europe will ramify in the years ahead. [Read more]( [PS. The latest on politics for less than $9 a month. ]( The Big Picture [America’s Stimulus Debate]( [America’s Stimulus Debate]( Featuring Joseph E. Stiglitz, James K. Galbraith, Daron Acemoglu, and more Many would regard the middle of a pandemic-induced economic crisis as the wrong time to sound the alarm about the potential dangers of profligate government spending. But as US President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan works its way through Congress, it is not only Republicans who are asking whether providing too much fiscal stimulus could be just as risky as delivering too little. [Read more]( Say More [An Interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat]( [An Interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat]( Ruth Ben-Ghiat – Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University – suggests how the Biden administration can combat democratic erosion, highlights the international nature of white supremacy, and draws lessons from Italy on how not to address corruption. [Read more]( Previously in On Point [Growth Is Not Enough]( [Growth Is Not Enough]( By Iqbal Dhaliwal and Samantha Friedlander With an abundance of important and sometimes surprising findings from studies of socioeconomic interventions in recent decades, it is clear that development in the absence of evidence-based policymaking is a fool's errand. The small details matter as much as – and sometimes more than – the economic big picture. [Read more]( [PS. Give the gift of knowledge]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.