Nancy MacLean

Democracy in Chains received praise from liberal and progressive scholars and readers. In The Atlantic, Sam Tanenhaus called Democracy in Chains "A vibrant intellectual history of the radical right." Tanenhaus wrote that the book "is part of a new wave of historiography that has been examining the southern roots of modern conservatism" and it "untangle[s] important threads in American history [...] to make us see how much of that history begins, and still lives, in the South." George Monbiot, climate science author and columnist for The Guardian, wrote that the book was "the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century." Colin Gordon called the book "a revelation, as politics and as history." MacLean was interviewed by Rebecca Onion in Slate, Alex Shephard in The New Republic, and Mark Karlin Alternet about her "remarkable" and "groundbreaking" book. Bethany Moreton of Dartmouth College called the book "indispensable reading [that] adds a critical storyline to the complex and multi-causal conservative counterrevolution." Writing in BillMoyers.com, Kristin Miller argued that "MacLean has unearthed a stealth ideologue of the American right" to whom Charles Koch has "looked to for inspiration." In NPR, Genevieve Valentie said the book "feels like it was written with a clock ticking down" after a sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself." Marshall Steinbaum of the Roosevelt Institute, described himself as "in sympathy with MacLean’s characterization of the Virginia School as profoundly antidemocratic and anti-academic" and considered the book "an important warning, and it should be read by all despite its rhetorical shortcomings." Luke Darby of GQ has called Democracy in Chains "one of the nine books to read before the next election." MacLean has been an invited guest on several popular television and radio outlets, most notably Real Time with Bill Maher, where she has appeared twice (in August and November of 2018) to discuss contemporary politics and the history of the far right.

Democracy in Chains was also criticized by libertarian scholars and readers. David Bernstein disputed her portrayal of Buchanan and George Mason University, where Bernstein is and Buchanan was a professor, and questioned the accuracy of her depiction of Buchanan's influence on the libertarian movement. Jonathan H. Adler noted allegations of serious errors and misleading quotations in Democracy in Chains raised by Russ Roberts, David R. Henderson, Don Boudreaux and others. Michael Munger, a libertarian political scientist at Duke University wrote that Democracy in Chains "is a work of speculative historical fiction" while Phil Magness argued that MacLean had "simply made up an inflammatory association" concerning Buchanan and the Southern Agrarians. Steve Horwitz argued that it was "a book that gets almost everything wrong, from the most basic of facts to the highest of theory". Brian Doherty argued, contra MacLean, that Buchanan had upbraided his colleagues who supported the Chilean dictatorship. In response, MacLean said she was the target of a "coordinated and interlinked set of calculated hit jobs" from "the Koch team of professors who don’t disclose their conflicts of interest and the operatives who work full time for their project to shackle our democracy." MacLean said that her book's ranking on Amazon was being spammed by negative reviews and rankings and urged people to post positive ones in response (this is against Amazon policy). Adler, Bernstein, Carden, and Magness have responded to her, pointing out that any Koch relationship was already acknowledged. In addition, Georg Vanberg noted two later private letters in which Buchanan discussed his work on school vouchers and condemned the "evils of race-class-cultural segregation."

Others who fall into neither the "team Public Choice" or "team anti-Buchanan," offered mixed reviews. Henry Farrell and Steven Teles called the book a "conspiracy theory in the guise of intellectual history" and wrote that "while we do not share Buchanan’s ideology ... we think the broad thrust of the criticism is right. MacLean is not only wrong in detail but mistaken in the fundamentals of her account." Similarly, Noah Smith agreed that MacLean had taken Tyler Cowen, whom he called "a staunch defender of democracy," out of context. Heather Boushey wrote that MacLean had shone "a light on important truths" but cautioned that "her overt moral revulsion at her subject can sometimes make it seem as if we’re getting only part of the picture." Jack Rakove wrote that "should be a thorough scholarly review of these points [raised by critics], and one suspects that MacLean will have to make a more concerted effort to justify her argument than she has yet provided," while concluding that "her questions remain important and well worth pondering." In her review for the History of Political Economy, Jennifer Burns wrote that "the narrative of American history [Democracy in Chains] presents is insular and highly politicized, laying out a drama of good versus evil with little attention paid to the larger worlds—global, economic, or intellectual—in which the story nests"

Criticism was also earned by MacLean for her remarks during the Q & A portion of her February 7, 2018 speech at New York City Unitarian Church of All Souls. She was asked, "Where do (Public Choice Theory economist James Buchanan’s) motivations lie? Are they ones of personal greed? It seems like it’s a little grander, is it malevolence?" MacLean answered, "As an author, I have struggled with this, and I could explain it in different ways. I didn’t put this in the book, but I will say it here. It’s striking to me how many of the architects of this cause seem to be on the autism spectrum—you know, people who don’t feel solidarity or empathy with others, and who have difficult human relationships sometimes."

In 2017 MacLean published Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. This book focused on the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan and his work in public choice theory, Charles Koch, George Mason University, and the libertarian movement in the US. MacLean argued they have undertaken "a stealth bid to reverse-engineer all of America, at both the state and national levels back to the political economy and oligarchic governance of midcentury Virginia, minus the segregation." According to MacLean, Buchanan represents "the true origin story of today’s well-heeled radical right."

In 2010, MacLean moved to Duke University. She served as co-chair of Scholars for a Progressive North Carolina (SPNC), which has since been renamed Scholars for North Carolina's Future (SNCF). In 2013, MacLean participated in SPNC panels and forums held in opposition to the legislative agenda of Republican majority of the North Carolina General Assembly.

Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace, published in 2006 by Harvard University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation, traces the ways in which civil rights activism produced a seismic shift in U.S. workplaces, from an environment in which discrimination and a "culture of exclusion" were the norm to one that accepted and even celebrated diversity and inclusion.

In 1995 MacLean received the Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Prize from the Southern Historical Association. In 2010, she was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. In 2007, she received the Philip Taft Labor History Book Award of the Labor and Working Class Studies Association. In 2007 she received the Allan Sharlin Book Award for the best book in social science history from the Social Science History Association. In 2007 she received the Willard Hurst Prize for best book in socio-legal history from the Law and Society Association. In 2007 she received the Labor History Best Book Prize from the International Association of Labor History Institutions. Democracy in Chains was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for nonfiction, a finalist for the "Los Angeles Times Book Award in Current Interest", and the winner of the Lannar Foundation Cultural Freedom Award. The book was also named "Most Valuable Book of 2017" by The Nation. In 2018, Democracy in Chains won the Lillian Smith Book Award, for "books that are outstanding creative achievements, worthy of recognition because of their literary merit, moral vision, and honest representation of the South, its people, problems, and promises."

Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, published in 1994, explores how some five million ordinary, white Protestant men joined the second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. MacLean argued that the Ku Klux Klan was an organization “at once mainstream and extreme” that was hostile to both big government and to unionism; that Klan philosophy was anti-elitist and anti-black, but that their patriarchal stance for family values helped achieve a mass following; and that they demonstrated political affinity with the varieties of European fascism of the 1920s.

From 1989 to 2010 MacLean taught at Northwestern University, where she served as chairperson of the Department of History, and as the Peter B. Ritzma Professor in the Humanities. MacLean spoke in favor of and participated in the Living Wage Campaign.

In 1981, MacLean completed a four-year, combined-degree, B.A./M.A program in history at Brown University, graduating magna cum laude. In 1989, she received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied under Linda Gordon. MacLean’s doctoral thesis later became her first book, published as Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (1994).

Nancy K. MacLean (born August 22, 1959) is an American historian. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. MacLean's research focuses on race, gender, labor history and social movements in 20th century U.S. history, with particular attention to the U.S. South.