Primal Screams

Why has identity politics suddenly come to dominate public life? In Primal Screams, Mary Eberstadt offers a startling answer: the breakdown of the family, accelerated by the sexual revolution, has left a vast number of people uncertain of who they are — and they are reaching for political tribes to fill the void.

Eberstadt traces how the loss of stable kinship has led to a new and often raw search for belonging. From campus protests to online subcultures, the symptoms of this “primal scream” are everywhere. Yet the deeper cause, she argues, is not ideological but anthropological.

Published in 2019, the book includes responses to Eberstadt’s thesis from Rod Dreher, Mark Lilla, and Peter Thiel, making it both a diagnosis and a debate.