Woke has conquered the West. Identity politics, cancel culture and trans ideology reign. The values of ‘inclusivity’ and ‘diversity’ dominate politics, academia, the media, big business and the very language we speak. Censorship and public shaming are the price you pay for dissent. Woke has won – but at what cost? Beneath the politically correct buzzwords lies a politics that is reactionary and elitist. Racial divisions are rehabilitated in the name of anti-racism. Women’s rights are destroyed in the name of trans rights. Ordinary people are demonised as bigots, while virtue-signalling corporations pose as radical. Where did woke come from? And whose interests does it serve? This is a book about how a once fringe set of ideas took our elites by storm, and why this is bad news for everyone else. Joanna Williams argues that we have much more in common than the woke would have us believe – and that it is time to come together to forge a freer, more democratic and truly egalitarian future.

Joanna Williams is a columnist at spiked and a frequent contributor to a range of publications including The Times, the Spectator and the Telegraph. After over a decade in academia, she left to set up her own think tank, Cieo, which provides a platform for research and debates that universities dare not touch. How Woke Won is Joanna’s fourth book. Her previous work has explored academic freedom, feminism and higher education.