COMING CLEAN
The Rise of the Critical Theory and the Future of the Left
The MIT PRESS 2025; ISBN-10: 0262049589
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Leftists have long taught that people in the West must take responsibility for centuries of classism, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and other gross injustices. Right-wingers constantly ridicule this claim for its “wokeness.” Heinze rejects the idea that we should be less woke. In fact, we need more wokeness, but of a new kind. Yes, we must teach about these bleak pasts, but we must also educate the public about the left’s own support for regimes that damaged and destroyed millions of lives for over a century— in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia or North Korea. Criticisms of Western wrongdoing are certainly important, yet leftists have rarely engaged in the kinds of open and public self-scrutiny that they demand from others. Citing examples as different as the Ukraine war, LGBTQ+ people in Cuba, the concept of “hatred,” and the problem of leftwing antisemitism, Heinze explains why and how the left must change its memory politics if it is to claim any ethical high ground. ● Represented by: JP Marshall Literary Agency ● (See video / Read excerpt.)

ENDORSEMENTS ● Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, author of In Defense of Universal Human Rights ● Anthony Julius, Deputy Chairman, Mishcon de Reya LLP; Professor, Faculty of Laws, University College London ● Abby Smith Rumsey, author of Memory, Edited ● Paul Kohler, MP; Member of the Home Affairs Select Committee of the UK House of Commons ● Joe Humphreys, Irish Times

INTERVIEWS ● ‘Thinking from Within: Ten Questions on Coming Clean’ Heliopolis, interviewed by Fabrizio Sciacca, July 2025 ● ‘Coming Clean: Critical Theory and the Left’, interview with What’s Left, hosted by Andy Libson and Eduardo Barca, 31 May 2025 ● ‘Eric Heinze on Critical Theory and the Left’s Blind Spots’, The Politics Guys, interviewed by Michael Baranowski, 28 May 2025 ● National Public Radio (US), The Campbell Conversations, interviewed by Prof. Grant Reeher of Syracuse University, 17 May 2025 ● ‘Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left, Eric Heinze’, hosted by Caleb Zakarin, New Books Network, 16 May 2025 ● ‘Prof. Eric Heinze on The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left’, Free Speech Union, interviewed by Nick Hanne, 30 April 2025 ● The Philosopher’s Zone, History and the left, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), interviewed by David Rutledge, 2 May 2025 ● Escaping Ideology, Episode 23 – podcast with Jonathan Church of Merion West (Spotify), 19 April 2025 ● ‘Moments with Marianne – with Special Guest Eric Heinze’, KMET Radio 1490AM & 98.1FM (Southern California), 10 April 2025

RESPONSES AND REVIEWS ● Discussion with Fabrizio Sciacca, ‘Thinking from Within: Ten Questions on Coming Clean’, Heliopolis, July 2025 ● Review by Fabrizio Sciacca in 8:1 MONDI: Movimenti Simbolici e Sociali dell’Uomo, April 2025, 171-173 ● Troels Heeger, ‘The left needs to become more woke – but not in the way you think’, Berlingske, 3 May 2025 [English translation on request] ● Discussed by Joe Humphreys, Was Bono morally wrong to accept a US medal of freedom? It’s not that simple, Irish Times, 28 Apr 2025

THE MOST HUMAN RIGHT: Why Free Speech is Everything
The MIT PRESS 2022; paperback 2023
ISBN-10:‎0262046458, ISBN-13:978-0262046459
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Argues that human rights can only be construed as being founded within free speech ● Featured book at: The MIT Press, May 2022 ● Selected for Oxford Literary Festival 2023 (25 March – 2 April, presentation on 30 March) ● Nominated for: ‘The Next Big Idea’, Season 18 (non-fiction published February – July 2022) ● Chinese translation: Motifpress, Taipei 2023 ● Audiobook version recorded by award-winning actor Julian Elfer (2022) ● Represented by: JP Marshall Literary Agency

ENDORSEMENTS ● Steven Pinker (Harvard), Nadine Strossen (former President ACLU); Samuel Moyn (Yale), Robert Post (Yale), James Bloodworth (journalist)

INTERVIEWS ● Tim O’Brien, Encore: Free Speech is the Most Human Right, Shaping Opinion, 9 May 2022 ● Online interview (Spotify) with New Zealand Free Speech Union, May 22, 2024 ● Joe Humphreys, Why free speech should be the most highly valued human right, Irish Times, 14 April 2022 ● Mariella Frostrup, ‘We can’t wait until Russia is dropping bombs for us to realise that free speech was a problem all along’, Times Radio, 3 March 2022

RESPONSES AND REVIEWS ● (excerpts available here) ● Riana Tambunan & Citra Lidiawati, Book Review, Australian Journal of Human Rights, 2023; Author’s reply, Australian Journal of Human Rights, 2023 ● Lisa Downing, Introduction, Paragraph, Special Issue on ‘Critical Freedoms’, 279-289, at 283-284, 2023 ● Wayne Cristaudo (2023) ‘Free Speech in a World of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity’, The European Legacy, pp. 5-8 ● Hans-Ingvar Roth, ‘Yttrandefriheten – Den mänskligaste rättigheten?’ (‘Freedom of Expression – The Most Human Right?), Dixikon, 17 June 2022 ● L. Ali Khan, Book review, New York Journal of Books, April 2022 ● Sarah Bartlett Schroeder, Book review, Library Journal, 11 Mar 2022 ● ‘Exploration of rights doesn’t mince words’, The Australian, 22 April 2022

HATE SPEECH AND DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
Oxford University Press 2016; paperback 2017
ISBN-10: 0198759029, ISBN-13: 978-0198759027
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Advocates construing sociological, socio-linguistic, critical-legal, empirical, and historical claims about extreme speech according to legitimating conditions of contemporary democracies ● £2500 grant awarded to Dr A Greene (UCL) and Dr R Simpson (Monash) by the Society for Applied Philosophy to hold two-day interdisciplinary conference dedicated to critical readings of the book, 1 – 2 June 2017

ENDORSEMENTS ● Nadine Strossen, Past President, American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008) and Author of HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (OUP 2018) ● Timothy Garton Ash, University of Oxford ● Ian Cram, University of Leeds ● James Weinstein, Arizona State University ● Morten Kinander, Norwegian Business School ● Jo Murkens, London School of Economics ● Antony Duff, University of Stirling ● Andrew Reid, LSE Review of Books

RESPONSES AND REVIEWS ● (excerpts available here) ● Stéphane Courtois, ‘Are Hate Speech Laws Useless? An Appraisal of Eric Heinze’s Arguments’, Res Publica 28 (2):249-269, 2022 ● John Gardner, ‘Doubts about ‘Democratic Legitimacy’, Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 3/2018 ● István Pogany, 23(2) European Public Law (2017) pp. 425-29 ● Amanda Green and Robert Simpson, 80(4) Modern Law Review (2017), 746–766 ● Katharine Gelber, (2017)(3) Public Law, pp. 534-37 ● Andrew Reid, LSE Review of Books, reprinted in Democratic Audit¸ 26 March 2017 ● Matteo Bonotti, 26(2) Social and Legal Studies (2017), pp. 276-80 ● András Koltay, 8(2) Journal of Media Law (2016), pp. 302-06 ● Guido Alpa, Disinnescare l’«hate speech», Il Sole 24 Ore, 2 October 2017 ● Robert Kahn, Hate Speech, Democratic Legitimacy and the Age of Trump, International and Comparative Law Review, vol, 17:1, pp. 239–253, 2017 ● Lesley Abdela, Democracies, free speech and the right to offend, OpenDemocracy, 22 May 2016