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Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
The CNN host and best-selling author explores the revolutions—past and present—that define the polarized and unstable age in which we live.
Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, war, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk—the early decades of the twenty-first century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions, and how can they help us to understand our fraught world?
In this major work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. Three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world—and created politics as we know it today. Next, the French Revolution, an explosive era that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Great Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world.
Alongside these paradigm-shifting historical events, Zakaria probes four present-day revolutions: globalization, technology, identity, and geopolitics. For all their benefits, the globalization and technology revolutions have produced profound disruptions and pervasive anxiety and our identity. And increasingly, identity is the battlefield on which the twenty-first century’s polarized politics are fought. All this is set against a geopolitical revolution as great as the one that catapulted the United States to world power in the late nineteenth century. Now we are entering a world in which the US is no longer the dominant power. As we find ourselves at the nexus of four seismic revolutions, we can easily imagine a dark future. But Zakaria proves that pessimism is premature. If we act wisely, the liberal international order can be revived and populism relegated to the ash heap of history.
As few public intellectuals can, Zakaria combines intellectual range, deep historical insight, and uncanny prescience to once again reframe and illuminate our turbulent present. His bold, compelling arguments make this book essential reading in our age of revolutions.
Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, war, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk—the early decades of the twenty-first century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions, and how can they help us to understand our fraught world?
In this major work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. Three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world—and created politics as we know it today. Next, the French Revolution, an explosive era that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Great Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world.
Alongside these paradigm-shifting historical events, Zakaria probes four present-day revolutions: globalization, technology, identity, and geopolitics. For all their benefits, the globalization and technology revolutions have produced profound disruptions and pervasive anxiety and our identity. And increasingly, identity is the battlefield on which the twenty-first century’s polarized politics are fought. All this is set against a geopolitical revolution as great as the one that catapulted the United States to world power in the late nineteenth century. Now we are entering a world in which the US is no longer the dominant power. As we find ourselves at the nexus of four seismic revolutions, we can easily imagine a dark future. But Zakaria proves that pessimism is premature. If we act wisely, the liberal international order can be revived and populism relegated to the ash heap of history.
As few public intellectuals can, Zakaria combines intellectual range, deep historical insight, and uncanny prescience to once again reframe and illuminate our turbulent present. His bold, compelling arguments make this book essential reading in our age of revolutions.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2024
About the author
Fareed Zakaria
46 books1,048 followersFareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-born American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 163 reviews
March 29, 2024
This is a history of the path to a global “rules-based liberal order” that began with the European Enlightenment, starting with the Netherlands. Zakaria is clearly a fan, although, as he consistently does in all his journalism, he goes to great lengths to provide an objective, balanced perspective, to the extent that any human can be objective and balanced about a reading of history.
It's important to note his definitions. “When scholars speak of liberalism as an ideology in international relations, they don’t mean left-wing policies but rather a respect for liberty, democracy, cooperation, and human rights.” While democratic at heart, it is a liberalism built on faceless institutions like the World Bank, the WHO, and the WTO, which are accountable to the ideal but no electorate. It is, in the end, an institutional world order.
To the core, Fareed is an optimist. While he recognizes the duality of all history, the ebb and flow of progress and retrenchment, he seems to fundamentally believe, at least hope, that the good guys win in the end. Political parties have always changed sides from time to time. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican while president, but not one you would pick out of a lineup today. And Lyndon Johnson, perhaps the ultimate presidential champion of civil rights, had “allied with white supremacists earlier in his career.”
In the end, however, the march toward progress and the inherent ideals of global liberalism has continued and at this point, Fareed maintains, may be irreversible since the world is interconnected to an extent that is unlikely to be undone.
As one who lived and worked in China for fourteen years, I do believe Zakaria has the most objective and informed assessment of China today of any US politician or journalist, who strike me as uniformly uninformed, often ill-informed, although he still seems to share just a hint of Western bias on the topic.
He doesn’t wade far into current politics, although he acknowledges that “Where politics was once overwhelmingly shaped by economics, politics today is being transformed by identity.” That, however, largely to his credit, I think, is about as deep as he dives into the current culture wars, with religion being the one possible exception.
He does talk a lot about technology and the impact it has had on the world. And he acknowledges that “The digital economy, for all its promise, has caused inequality to spike to levels not seen since the Gilded Age.” He only uses the word greed on four occasions, however, and if I found the book wanting at all it was a light-handed approach to the growing inequity in wealth and income in America today. He references it, but seems, to my way of thinking, to underestimate how grave the issue is quickly becoming. The pitchforks will come out if we don’t act to address it.
In the end Zakaria is one of the best minds in the media today. The book is thoroughly researched, well-written, and delightfully insightful. All told, this is a delightful book and deserves to be on your shelf.
It's important to note his definitions. “When scholars speak of liberalism as an ideology in international relations, they don’t mean left-wing policies but rather a respect for liberty, democracy, cooperation, and human rights.” While democratic at heart, it is a liberalism built on faceless institutions like the World Bank, the WHO, and the WTO, which are accountable to the ideal but no electorate. It is, in the end, an institutional world order.
To the core, Fareed is an optimist. While he recognizes the duality of all history, the ebb and flow of progress and retrenchment, he seems to fundamentally believe, at least hope, that the good guys win in the end. Political parties have always changed sides from time to time. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican while president, but not one you would pick out of a lineup today. And Lyndon Johnson, perhaps the ultimate presidential champion of civil rights, had “allied with white supremacists earlier in his career.”
In the end, however, the march toward progress and the inherent ideals of global liberalism has continued and at this point, Fareed maintains, may be irreversible since the world is interconnected to an extent that is unlikely to be undone.
As one who lived and worked in China for fourteen years, I do believe Zakaria has the most objective and informed assessment of China today of any US politician or journalist, who strike me as uniformly uninformed, often ill-informed, although he still seems to share just a hint of Western bias on the topic.
He doesn’t wade far into current politics, although he acknowledges that “Where politics was once overwhelmingly shaped by economics, politics today is being transformed by identity.” That, however, largely to his credit, I think, is about as deep as he dives into the current culture wars, with religion being the one possible exception.
He does talk a lot about technology and the impact it has had on the world. And he acknowledges that “The digital economy, for all its promise, has caused inequality to spike to levels not seen since the Gilded Age.” He only uses the word greed on four occasions, however, and if I found the book wanting at all it was a light-handed approach to the growing inequity in wealth and income in America today. He references it, but seems, to my way of thinking, to underestimate how grave the issue is quickly becoming. The pitchforks will come out if we don’t act to address it.
In the end Zakaria is one of the best minds in the media today. The book is thoroughly researched, well-written, and delightfully insightful. All told, this is a delightful book and deserves to be on your shelf.
June 7, 2024
Zakaria is genially informative, sizing up the cumulative effects of early-modern Dutch and English “revolutions,” then the French, industrial, and informational revolutions. But that’s just the first half of the book. Then he examines the recent mounting cascades of economic, political, and social change, giving some of the most objective, insightful commentary I’ve seen.
April 24, 2024
This is a well-written, astute analysis of the present state of our geopolitical reality, and a historical explanation of how it got to be that way through the examination of five separate revolutions: the first liberal revolution in the Netherlands, the “Glorious Revolution” in Britain, the failed French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution originating in Britain and the West, and the varied Social and Cultural Revolutions of 20th Century America and Europe.
Zakaria is smart, level-headed, urbane, and offers some sensible advice at the end of the book for how we as citizens can best navigate the political waters of the future. Cautionary advice is provided for both adherents of the far left and the far right. This is well worth a read. 4 stars.
Zakaria is smart, level-headed, urbane, and offers some sensible advice at the end of the book for how we as citizens can best navigate the political waters of the future. Cautionary advice is provided for both adherents of the far left and the far right. This is well worth a read. 4 stars.
March 4, 2024
Interesting book, two broad-minded quotes:
"...while the workers of Industrial Britain were exploited and poorly treated, they were still doing far better in material terms than their ancestors, or even their parents. The simplest proof comes from looking at the choices of ordinary peasants - and treating these choices with respect. Tens of millions of farmers, all across Europe, chose to leave rural poverty to pursue a better life in the cities."
"Fearing the perceived cultural extremism of the modern Left, Republicans have turned to political radicalism in a last-ditch effort to win elections no matter what, to arrest what they see as further cultural decline. The tragic asymmetry of contemporary American life is this: the Right often punches above its weight in politics but yearns for cultural power. The Left owns the culture but constantly pines for political power...it tries to use its cultural power to shape politics - a dangerous and often illiberal quest."
"...while the workers of Industrial Britain were exploited and poorly treated, they were still doing far better in material terms than their ancestors, or even their parents. The simplest proof comes from looking at the choices of ordinary peasants - and treating these choices with respect. Tens of millions of farmers, all across Europe, chose to leave rural poverty to pursue a better life in the cities."
"Fearing the perceived cultural extremism of the modern Left, Republicans have turned to political radicalism in a last-ditch effort to win elections no matter what, to arrest what they see as further cultural decline. The tragic asymmetry of contemporary American life is this: the Right often punches above its weight in politics but yearns for cultural power. The Left owns the culture but constantly pines for political power...it tries to use its cultural power to shape politics - a dangerous and often illiberal quest."
March 24, 2024
From a few pages, I find the author needs my Freshman Composition course. I urged my students to avoid weak verbs, especially "Is-ness." But Zakaria:
"Aristotle's 'Politics,' written in the fourth century BC, is a book ...." and
"Politics is one of those rare human enterprises that hasn't changed that much over the millenia."
which I revise to eliminate its "is" verb, like a a fulcrum on an unmoving see-saw:
"Politics, rare among human enterprises, changed little over 2,000 years."
Great point later, Cicero's brother wrote advice on winning election: "Promise everything to everyone, always be seen in public surrounded by your most passionate supporters, and remind voters of your opponents' sex scandals. More than 2,000 years late, political consultants charge hefty fees to dispense the same advice."
"Aristotle's 'Politics,' written in the fourth century BC, is a book ...." and
"Politics is one of those rare human enterprises that hasn't changed that much over the millenia."
which I revise to eliminate its "is" verb, like a a fulcrum on an unmoving see-saw:
"Politics, rare among human enterprises, changed little over 2,000 years."
Great point later, Cicero's brother wrote advice on winning election: "Promise everything to everyone, always be seen in public surrounded by your most passionate supporters, and remind voters of your opponents' sex scandals. More than 2,000 years late, political consultants charge hefty fees to dispense the same advice."
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
July 10, 2024
Hmmm.
An overly simplified, often muddied and more Euro/American-centric book than I had anticipated, that very much treaded center of the line politics in an attempt to be "objective."
And yes, I realize that this man has far more accolades than I do and a whole team of people working for him to churn out a great product, but after reading more nuanced histories on similar subjects, this was a miss for me. Also, he references Jared Diamond and Francis Fukuyama constantly and with little criticism, which are red flags for me.
An overly simplified, often muddied and more Euro/American-centric book than I had anticipated, that very much treaded center of the line politics in an attempt to be "objective."
And yes, I realize that this man has far more accolades than I do and a whole team of people working for him to churn out a great product, but after reading more nuanced histories on similar subjects, this was a miss for me. Also, he references Jared Diamond and Francis Fukuyama constantly and with little criticism, which are red flags for me.
June 27, 2024
I could hear Zakaria’s sonorous, somber, competent voice the whole time I read this book. I don’t know if it was his intent or not, but this book somehow reassured me that things are not as bad as they seem, as if there is a path out of the minefields of the present, if only good middle of the road liberals like Zakaria stay in charge. Be sober, industrious, and reasonable, and all will be well.
The book starts with an analysis of other revolutionary eras in the modern world: the Dutch revolution, which invented capitalism, the English Glorious Revolution, which imported aspects of the Dutch for parliamentary supremacy and more capitalism, which led to the next revolution Zakaria analyzes, the Industrial Revolution. He moves on to the French Revolution, which he sees as a failure, and the American Revolution, which was a success. Echoing Eric Hobsbawm, he gives a mostly materialist explanation, so that technical and economic change brought political change. On the other hand, liberalism, an idea, was the central feature of all the revolutions, and produced and was predicated upon openness - borders, politics, trade, freedom - and brought wealth and power. Unfortunately, it was extremely disruptive of the social status quo, so that belief systems, social networks, identities, all the things that brought comfort to people’s lives besides money and power. Thus, the inevitable backlash.
Over the long-term, I think this is a good analysis. I was glad to see somebody offering classic interpretations of these pivotal moments in the history of the West. Many academic historians have gone off into post-modernist left field, concentrating upon secondary characteristics as if those were the main features, but not Zakaria. I am not so sure, however, that, over the long-run, that the French Revolution was really a failure. In the short and medium terms in France, yes. Over the history of ideas of the past two hundred years, I would rate it a brilliant, sparking success. And I would note that the economic historian Robert Allen, in “The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective”, argued that cheap coal and expensive labor were far more important in sparking the industrial revolution than liberalism. I still haven’t made my mind up about that.
In 2024, we are living in the era of backlash from the revolutions of globalization and information technology. Both of these phenomena created great wealth and advances in material human progress, but their downsides have to be reckoned with. Globalization and automation have led to a decline in American manufacturing jobs. Much of the global architecture of trade was constructed in organizations such as the World Trade Organization or the World Economic Forum that were purposefully insulated from democracy. As inequality between countries has decreased, inequality within industrialized countries has increased. The digital revolution has not changed physical reality like the industrial revolution, but it has "change[d] the mental world, expanding information, knowledge, analytic capacity, and with it our definition of what it means to be human." These are great gains but it has also resulted in shortened attention spans and feeds resentment, loneliness, conspiracy theories, anxiety, misinformation, fake news, extremism, and censorship.
This has been accompanied by what Zakaria geopolitically calls “the rise of the rest.” Although the American economy is still over one quarter of the world economy, it no longer can tell other, self-confident, rising nations exactly what to do. China has risen to become a geopolitical rival and Russia has reemerged as a regional spoiler, but also countries like India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Brazil have become more powerful in their regions. With these countries, America cannot act as a hegemon; it needs to negotiate for and concede influence, and that is very difficult for it to do, especially given the authoritarian nature of some of these regimes. After the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans seem to want to withdraw from the world and all its confusion, and American behavior in Iraq and its backing of Israel also tarnish its image abroad. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the NATO alliance closer to together, but much of the rest of the world is happy to buy discounted Russian oil and gas. Many of these governments have become less democratic and liberal than was hoped in the 1990s and 2000s.
Politics has moved from a division between left and right into a division between open and closed. Brexist, Trumpism, the Far Right in Europe: all want to close borders to immigrants to stop demographic change. As well, the economic crash of 2008 showed the American and European financial systems protecting the rich at the expense of the rest. Covid 19 fueled the fire more. As the center left and right economic policies have coalesced, we now see a collapse in the faith of the liberal project, authorities and institutions on both extremes but especially in the working class. We see leftist yuppies versus conservative blue collar workers, Christian Republicans versus secular Democrats, very liberal young women and very conservative young men, and a racial animus towards the first Black president and immigration. The Trump presidency was the result, not the cause of these changes.
I think that Zakaria’s advice to keep the liberal project alive is mostly very sane. Firstly, those who believe in liberalism’s potential have to acknowledge the missteps that have taken place and when we have gone too far. Rather than top-down social change imposed by bureaucrats in search of perfect justice, we need more organic change from the bottom up so that the elites do not get out ahead of public feeling. This is a good Burkean instinct: change to preserve. We need to prioritize individual rights over membership in social categories. No more mistakes like the war in Iraq. And since 2008, we have to acknowledge that sometimes politics is more important than economics. Biden has kept most of Trump's protectionist economic policies in place and expanded others; rather than only prioritizing growth, there are also national security issues, a need to keep American manufacturing alive, and to try to pull the bottom up closer to the top.
I would add more. We have to prioritize our national democracies over non-elected international bureaucracies. We need to be open to ideas, but borders matter. The people who live in a country get to decide who else gets in. Free trade is better than mercantilism or autarky, but it also depends upon what everyone else is doing. To make an historical argument, when Britain opted for free trade in the 1840s, it was good for Britain. It provided cheap food, and her industries were strong. After Germany and the USA set up second generation industry behind tariff walls, it made sense for Britain, as a second-best option, to try for imperial preferences. Free trade needs to be seen to benefit those at the bottom as well as well as at the top.
We have to prioritize free speech but stop letting the social media companies profit from disinformation. When Alex Jones was recently fined $1 billion for his lies, I thought, why should we not be able to sue the social media companies, that is Youtube, who profited from his being on their platform? That is surely the way forward. On the other hand, it should be illegal for corporations to fire somebody because of their political views.
Zakaria is a good storyteller. I agree with his analysis that populism arises because of real problems but often has bad solutions. The scapegoats are just scapegoats. It is up to responsible politicians to find real solutions. But I also wonder if today is as revolutionary as he proposes. Think about the 1960s and the Weathermen and Black Panthers and the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The riots and the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon with the “Southern Strategy.” At the moment, populism and authoritarianism are challenging liberalism, but how leaders and ordinary people react to this will be crucial. As Hans Rosling said, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. But I am a possibilist.
The book starts with an analysis of other revolutionary eras in the modern world: the Dutch revolution, which invented capitalism, the English Glorious Revolution, which imported aspects of the Dutch for parliamentary supremacy and more capitalism, which led to the next revolution Zakaria analyzes, the Industrial Revolution. He moves on to the French Revolution, which he sees as a failure, and the American Revolution, which was a success. Echoing Eric Hobsbawm, he gives a mostly materialist explanation, so that technical and economic change brought political change. On the other hand, liberalism, an idea, was the central feature of all the revolutions, and produced and was predicated upon openness - borders, politics, trade, freedom - and brought wealth and power. Unfortunately, it was extremely disruptive of the social status quo, so that belief systems, social networks, identities, all the things that brought comfort to people’s lives besides money and power. Thus, the inevitable backlash.
Over the long-term, I think this is a good analysis. I was glad to see somebody offering classic interpretations of these pivotal moments in the history of the West. Many academic historians have gone off into post-modernist left field, concentrating upon secondary characteristics as if those were the main features, but not Zakaria. I am not so sure, however, that, over the long-run, that the French Revolution was really a failure. In the short and medium terms in France, yes. Over the history of ideas of the past two hundred years, I would rate it a brilliant, sparking success. And I would note that the economic historian Robert Allen, in “The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective”, argued that cheap coal and expensive labor were far more important in sparking the industrial revolution than liberalism. I still haven’t made my mind up about that.
In 2024, we are living in the era of backlash from the revolutions of globalization and information technology. Both of these phenomena created great wealth and advances in material human progress, but their downsides have to be reckoned with. Globalization and automation have led to a decline in American manufacturing jobs. Much of the global architecture of trade was constructed in organizations such as the World Trade Organization or the World Economic Forum that were purposefully insulated from democracy. As inequality between countries has decreased, inequality within industrialized countries has increased. The digital revolution has not changed physical reality like the industrial revolution, but it has "change[d] the mental world, expanding information, knowledge, analytic capacity, and with it our definition of what it means to be human." These are great gains but it has also resulted in shortened attention spans and feeds resentment, loneliness, conspiracy theories, anxiety, misinformation, fake news, extremism, and censorship.
This has been accompanied by what Zakaria geopolitically calls “the rise of the rest.” Although the American economy is still over one quarter of the world economy, it no longer can tell other, self-confident, rising nations exactly what to do. China has risen to become a geopolitical rival and Russia has reemerged as a regional spoiler, but also countries like India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Brazil have become more powerful in their regions. With these countries, America cannot act as a hegemon; it needs to negotiate for and concede influence, and that is very difficult for it to do, especially given the authoritarian nature of some of these regimes. After the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans seem to want to withdraw from the world and all its confusion, and American behavior in Iraq and its backing of Israel also tarnish its image abroad. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the NATO alliance closer to together, but much of the rest of the world is happy to buy discounted Russian oil and gas. Many of these governments have become less democratic and liberal than was hoped in the 1990s and 2000s.
Politics has moved from a division between left and right into a division between open and closed. Brexist, Trumpism, the Far Right in Europe: all want to close borders to immigrants to stop demographic change. As well, the economic crash of 2008 showed the American and European financial systems protecting the rich at the expense of the rest. Covid 19 fueled the fire more. As the center left and right economic policies have coalesced, we now see a collapse in the faith of the liberal project, authorities and institutions on both extremes but especially in the working class. We see leftist yuppies versus conservative blue collar workers, Christian Republicans versus secular Democrats, very liberal young women and very conservative young men, and a racial animus towards the first Black president and immigration. The Trump presidency was the result, not the cause of these changes.
I think that Zakaria’s advice to keep the liberal project alive is mostly very sane. Firstly, those who believe in liberalism’s potential have to acknowledge the missteps that have taken place and when we have gone too far. Rather than top-down social change imposed by bureaucrats in search of perfect justice, we need more organic change from the bottom up so that the elites do not get out ahead of public feeling. This is a good Burkean instinct: change to preserve. We need to prioritize individual rights over membership in social categories. No more mistakes like the war in Iraq. And since 2008, we have to acknowledge that sometimes politics is more important than economics. Biden has kept most of Trump's protectionist economic policies in place and expanded others; rather than only prioritizing growth, there are also national security issues, a need to keep American manufacturing alive, and to try to pull the bottom up closer to the top.
I would add more. We have to prioritize our national democracies over non-elected international bureaucracies. We need to be open to ideas, but borders matter. The people who live in a country get to decide who else gets in. Free trade is better than mercantilism or autarky, but it also depends upon what everyone else is doing. To make an historical argument, when Britain opted for free trade in the 1840s, it was good for Britain. It provided cheap food, and her industries were strong. After Germany and the USA set up second generation industry behind tariff walls, it made sense for Britain, as a second-best option, to try for imperial preferences. Free trade needs to be seen to benefit those at the bottom as well as well as at the top.
We have to prioritize free speech but stop letting the social media companies profit from disinformation. When Alex Jones was recently fined $1 billion for his lies, I thought, why should we not be able to sue the social media companies, that is Youtube, who profited from his being on their platform? That is surely the way forward. On the other hand, it should be illegal for corporations to fire somebody because of their political views.
Zakaria is a good storyteller. I agree with his analysis that populism arises because of real problems but often has bad solutions. The scapegoats are just scapegoats. It is up to responsible politicians to find real solutions. But I also wonder if today is as revolutionary as he proposes. Think about the 1960s and the Weathermen and Black Panthers and the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The riots and the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon with the “Southern Strategy.” At the moment, populism and authoritarianism are challenging liberalism, but how leaders and ordinary people react to this will be crucial. As Hans Rosling said, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. But I am a possibilist.
April 9, 2024
This book read like a history thesis. I was expecting more comparisons and conclusions drawn from the history to the current world and American situation. Instead it felt like a timeline through revolutions and a summary of college courses. I didn't feel he made the connections to current society.
July 5, 2024
Vienas iš tų darbų kuriuos galima pavadinti fundamentaliais darbais. Rimtas skaitinys norint suprasti šių dienų politiką. Tačiau trūksta daugiau šių dienos skirčių analizės ir ateities projekcijos. Tikrai vertas laiko skaitinys.
April 2, 2024
A clear, well written and insightful book - that builds upon the works of others (at least the following):
Paul Kennedy - "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers"
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman - "White Rural Rage"
Neil Howe/Bill Strauss - "The Fourth Turning (is here)"
Has great models and narrative especially about Dutch History/English and American history up to and through their respective Industrial Revolutions.
One of the books strengths is more detail and thoughtful narrative about what has happened recently - my 'take':
* During the Cold War - Americans 'material needs' were mostly met for the majority of the country.
* The collapse of Russia - change in American's political atmosphere. I don't believe it is a coincidence that just after the collapse of Russia - American politics became more strident - the Russians were no longer the enemy the "opposite party" were the enemy who needed to be destroyed - see Newt Gingrich Contract on America and his rhetoric.
* During this time the rise of racially charged rhetoric on the right - candidacy of David Duke formerly of the KKK and his racist monologue.
* Republican party's consensus around Neo-Liberalism and especially Neo-Liberal economics - see Milton/Laffer - adopted by Reagan....who in during the 1980 campaign stated assuredly that he could... cut taxes; raise defense spending and balance the budget all at the same time..." This model didn't work then; didn't work when George W. Bush tried it; didn't work when Donald Trump tried it but it remains Republican orthodoxy.
* "Forever Wars" in the Middle East - became unpopular.
* Add to this Great Recession and Covid-19 and the U.S. has deteriorated into 'tribes' through propoganda - advocating the world view that specific tribes 'are threatened with extinction' (which no reasonble inference can call this true - however) - because we're threatened with extinction - we need a strongman who will 'fight the good fight for us/against pedophile liberals.
* Enter Trump pulling directly from the playbook of the Strongman - Ruth Ben-Ghiat's book "Strongman" recognizes the signs of authoritarianism from the Republican far right and Trump - and indicates that this is a tried-and-true-playbook-because-it-works.
* In both Macro Great Power Politics (threat in Ukraine/Taiwan) and Israel-Gaza and U.S. Domestic Politics (America First) - I see great similarities to the 1930's - with the building of tariff walls and isolationism.
Zakaria's unique history/perspective provided me with at least the following 'take aways':
* He continued with his "Rise of the Rest" - models indicating that America is still growing - but other countries are growing faster.
* Zakaria - originally from India - can credibly state that some of the now rising stars and economic elite countries ARE NOT ENAMORED with Western Enlightenment Thinking. Representative democracy and the attendant rights of the individual - do not seem to be as important as macro growth to these populations. This is a very important point as some models see a future with a West Plus+/Russia-China-N. Korea/Iran// Unaligned - led by India - with many countries not accepting Western Enlightenment Ideas.
* The U.S. is powerful - but is losing influence - within the world. Forever wars in the Middle East, endless budget squabbles/mismanagement do not credibly suggest democracy and the U.S. Government "work" at all well and should be emulated.
* The U.S. has its own polarization with 'N' reports of an upcoming U.S. Civil War (Red America versus Blue America) - as above this is not an advertisement for the U.S. -its society or its governing model to be emulated.
A clear book - builds on interesting and relevant history - does a good job of describing what has happened since the fall of Russia and the rise of U.S. "Tribes" - where individuals, wishing to belong "buy into the whole agenda" - versus "being alone"....
Helped my understanding of the context for these larger events.
Should be of interest to those who read history, foreign policy and politics.
Carl Gallozzi
Cgallozzi@comcast.net
Paul Kennedy - "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers"
Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman - "White Rural Rage"
Neil Howe/Bill Strauss - "The Fourth Turning (is here)"
Has great models and narrative especially about Dutch History/English and American history up to and through their respective Industrial Revolutions.
One of the books strengths is more detail and thoughtful narrative about what has happened recently - my 'take':
* During the Cold War - Americans 'material needs' were mostly met for the majority of the country.
* The collapse of Russia - change in American's political atmosphere. I don't believe it is a coincidence that just after the collapse of Russia - American politics became more strident - the Russians were no longer the enemy the "opposite party" were the enemy who needed to be destroyed - see Newt Gingrich Contract on America and his rhetoric.
* During this time the rise of racially charged rhetoric on the right - candidacy of David Duke formerly of the KKK and his racist monologue.
* Republican party's consensus around Neo-Liberalism and especially Neo-Liberal economics - see Milton/Laffer - adopted by Reagan....who in during the 1980 campaign stated assuredly that he could... cut taxes; raise defense spending and balance the budget all at the same time..." This model didn't work then; didn't work when George W. Bush tried it; didn't work when Donald Trump tried it but it remains Republican orthodoxy.
* "Forever Wars" in the Middle East - became unpopular.
* Add to this Great Recession and Covid-19 and the U.S. has deteriorated into 'tribes' through propoganda - advocating the world view that specific tribes 'are threatened with extinction' (which no reasonble inference can call this true - however) - because we're threatened with extinction - we need a strongman who will 'fight the good fight for us/against pedophile liberals.
* Enter Trump pulling directly from the playbook of the Strongman - Ruth Ben-Ghiat's book "Strongman" recognizes the signs of authoritarianism from the Republican far right and Trump - and indicates that this is a tried-and-true-playbook-because-it-works.
* In both Macro Great Power Politics (threat in Ukraine/Taiwan) and Israel-Gaza and U.S. Domestic Politics (America First) - I see great similarities to the 1930's - with the building of tariff walls and isolationism.
Zakaria's unique history/perspective provided me with at least the following 'take aways':
* He continued with his "Rise of the Rest" - models indicating that America is still growing - but other countries are growing faster.
* Zakaria - originally from India - can credibly state that some of the now rising stars and economic elite countries ARE NOT ENAMORED with Western Enlightenment Thinking. Representative democracy and the attendant rights of the individual - do not seem to be as important as macro growth to these populations. This is a very important point as some models see a future with a West Plus+/Russia-China-N. Korea/Iran// Unaligned - led by India - with many countries not accepting Western Enlightenment Ideas.
* The U.S. is powerful - but is losing influence - within the world. Forever wars in the Middle East, endless budget squabbles/mismanagement do not credibly suggest democracy and the U.S. Government "work" at all well and should be emulated.
* The U.S. has its own polarization with 'N' reports of an upcoming U.S. Civil War (Red America versus Blue America) - as above this is not an advertisement for the U.S. -its society or its governing model to be emulated.
A clear book - builds on interesting and relevant history - does a good job of describing what has happened since the fall of Russia and the rise of U.S. "Tribes" - where individuals, wishing to belong "buy into the whole agenda" - versus "being alone"....
Helped my understanding of the context for these larger events.
Should be of interest to those who read history, foreign policy and politics.
Carl Gallozzi
Cgallozzi@comcast.net
April 14, 2024
Listened on Audible read by the author. The book is essentially a history of political and economic development since the 17th century beginning in the Netherlands with the beginnings of capitalism and liberalism through to the present.
If you’re looking for prescriptions for solving America’s present problems of populism and identitarian politics you won’t find much here. But if you want a thoughtful, cogent, and clear explanation how we got here, then I’d recommend this book.
If you’re looking for prescriptions for solving America’s present problems of populism and identitarian politics you won’t find much here. But if you want a thoughtful, cogent, and clear explanation how we got here, then I’d recommend this book.
May 22, 2024
Some of my favorite books were written by Mr. Zakaria but this is not one of them. The author reminds me of Erasmus, who, like him, will admit faults in the current system but advocates reform from within. Who, like him, benefited mightily from that system and therefore can never fully appreciate the anger of those who have not.
"Look at all the wonderful things that have happened as a result of this system." Can you not see what it has provided? Why sit there and attempt to tear it down? Overlooking the corruption and abuses. Showing an inability to understand how that system has left the majority behind. Glossing over and really not even mentioning the rampant corruption that is killing that system. Finally, not understanding (or not mentioning) that this system has broken down. It has failed to have any standards or principles that got in the way of making money. The author's class forsook piece by piece every single block of the liberal tradition starting way back with the liberal education whose loss he so lamented. And now, we are supposed to appreciate what amounts to a hollow, decayed shell and the symbols of that shell such as Biden, who he repeatedly praises.
He defends a group of people whose only true principle is to make money. This group bulldozes each tradition, each value, each virtue; it will choke on lies and overlook anything so long as they keep making money.
What he and apparently Biden do not understand is that it is this system - which was once great - no longer works. It is this system that is causing so many groups across the political spectrum, each in their own way, to desperately attempt to find alternatives however ridiculous.
This book is further confirmation in my mind that the elites of the West truly do not understand the problems of our age. They have no solutions other than what worked in the past which cannot possibly solve the problems of our day. Tone deaf, like so many before them.
-David
"Look at all the wonderful things that have happened as a result of this system." Can you not see what it has provided? Why sit there and attempt to tear it down? Overlooking the corruption and abuses. Showing an inability to understand how that system has left the majority behind. Glossing over and really not even mentioning the rampant corruption that is killing that system. Finally, not understanding (or not mentioning) that this system has broken down. It has failed to have any standards or principles that got in the way of making money. The author's class forsook piece by piece every single block of the liberal tradition starting way back with the liberal education whose loss he so lamented. And now, we are supposed to appreciate what amounts to a hollow, decayed shell and the symbols of that shell such as Biden, who he repeatedly praises.
He defends a group of people whose only true principle is to make money. This group bulldozes each tradition, each value, each virtue; it will choke on lies and overlook anything so long as they keep making money.
What he and apparently Biden do not understand is that it is this system - which was once great - no longer works. It is this system that is causing so many groups across the political spectrum, each in their own way, to desperately attempt to find alternatives however ridiculous.
This book is further confirmation in my mind that the elites of the West truly do not understand the problems of our age. They have no solutions other than what worked in the past which cannot possibly solve the problems of our day. Tone deaf, like so many before them.
-David
June 26, 2024
I take for granted how much the world has changed in such a short time. Insightful perspective on not only political revolutions. This was a great read for me because the theme of my student’s AP Euro essay this year was “revolutions”.
June 4, 2024
As always, Fareed blends his intellectual prowess with pragmatic theory. I recommend this book to anyone seeking answers about the ebb and flow of populism throughout the Western world.
Read
July 6, 2024DNF. there's certainly some substance here, I just found it painfully boring.
April 8, 2024
Dense with information in more of a textbook way than I expected and felt long. About midway through I was better able to follow the writing style to get more from the book though it still seems like there’s simply too much here. Might be worth re-reading for a better grasp of the material to long-term memory.
My favorite parts weren’t the facts but the author’s interpretations, thoughts, and recommendations.
Interesting that this number two bestselling nonfiction author this week has a section affirming Jonathan Haidt, the number one.
My favorite parts weren’t the facts but the author’s interpretations, thoughts, and recommendations.
Interesting that this number two bestselling nonfiction author this week has a section affirming Jonathan Haidt, the number one.
May 19, 2024
A review of this book could start from many places, from the choice of the title and how it closely or not hewed to the content, to the definition of terms used and even could take time to consider how the summer reading list affects books released in that year but as I am not writing this review for a magazine somewhere, it is going to be my straightforward sentiments and will have no detours to suggest which revolutions should have been covered better or which scholar was not name checked.
I have been reading Fareed since his Newsweek days to this current era where he is more involved in TV than longform writing. He is insightful, an original thinker and tries to give all voices a platform to be heard. Unfortunately for him and any op-ed writer who has tried to translate an opinion piece into book form, the effort almost always misses it's mark. It is a bit harder to carry the nuances of a topic into book length and inevitably the book turns into a wanderer of this and that trying to find it's core thesis. The same was of this book, it was a mixed bag with some revolutions better covered like the one in Britain while others were unclear on how they were categorized as revolutions. Towards the end it turned into a meta narrative on geopolitics and unless you don't keep abreast of current affairs of geopolitics, no new ground was covered.
Books covering this topic can either be written by professional historians or journalists and occasionally by intrepid souls looking for a new challenge. Historians will cover a large swathe count everything including sheep, goats and the occasional raccoon growth over time, produce large tomes that will struggle to hold your attention but will reward the tenacious reader with a lot of information; journalists on the other hand hold your attention alright, with sweeping declarations and interesting anecdotes but will be light on information. This book fell in the latter group. The potential reader should decide on what they are looking for before jumping into this one.
I have been reading Fareed since his Newsweek days to this current era where he is more involved in TV than longform writing. He is insightful, an original thinker and tries to give all voices a platform to be heard. Unfortunately for him and any op-ed writer who has tried to translate an opinion piece into book form, the effort almost always misses it's mark. It is a bit harder to carry the nuances of a topic into book length and inevitably the book turns into a wanderer of this and that trying to find it's core thesis. The same was of this book, it was a mixed bag with some revolutions better covered like the one in Britain while others were unclear on how they were categorized as revolutions. Towards the end it turned into a meta narrative on geopolitics and unless you don't keep abreast of current affairs of geopolitics, no new ground was covered.
Books covering this topic can either be written by professional historians or journalists and occasionally by intrepid souls looking for a new challenge. Historians will cover a large swathe count everything including sheep, goats and the occasional raccoon growth over time, produce large tomes that will struggle to hold your attention but will reward the tenacious reader with a lot of information; journalists on the other hand hold your attention alright, with sweeping declarations and interesting anecdotes but will be light on information. This book fell in the latter group. The potential reader should decide on what they are looking for before jumping into this one.
April 25, 2024
Hope for the future: Freedom is worth fighting for
After tracing the back and forth of revolutions and the backlashes against them that have rocked the West and from there the rest of the world since around 1600, Zakaria concludes that although the “acids of modernity” often leave people feeling anxious and rootless, freedom is still preferable to trying to return to some bygone era.
Demagogues like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin take advantage of the void in people’s lives that appears when traditional jobs and beliefs vanish as society modernizes. The disruptive effects of major social changes like the Industrial Revolution are real and destabilizing, Zakaria argues, and should not be written off as simply racism by the left. But the positive results of modernity are undeniable, Fareed notes, citing the doubling of the average human lifespan in merely the past century. For all the disruption and backlash caused by the revolutionary changes of the past 500 years, attempts to return to an imagined “Golden Age” are illusory.
Better, Zakaria advises, to take pride in the freedom won by centuries of revolutionary change and cushion the disruptions it has caused. Fareed recommends a range of things to strengthen families and communities, such as support for child care, family leave, and national service. An excellent measure of the success of what Zakaria calls liberalism—the mix of education, market economics, and protection for human rights on which the modern world is built—is that even conservatives like George Will consider it preferable to a return to monarchies and the simpler but far less free world of the past.
For everyone worried about where the populism and unrest of the past thirty years since the fall of communism are taking us, Age of Revolutions offers a solid case for how we got here and how to build a future that safeguards the hard-won advances humanity has achieved while addressing the very real disruption left in modernity’s wake.
June 13, 2024
At first I felt this work was merely a breezy annotation of past histories, scholarly and popular, without a strong thesis of its own. But I really came to appreciate its balanced account of our current zeitgeist—citing so many books of recent times, from Macaulay to Hobsbawm and on to Harari and Pinker, sums up the moment of reading that was as and is, my brief lifetime.
There’s also a powerful literary technique here, which is to stick closely at all times to contemporary challenges, especially populist backlash against global capitalism, connecting today’s problems to the longer arc of historical change.
Critics will no doubt decry the short shrift given to slavery, and the preppy global Southerner’s take on subalterns and exploited classes. The western narrative of progress is enriched without being denied: simply put, participatory government and free markets can bring better lives to the many, even if the examples we can cite, from the USA to China, Singapore, the modern EU, and so on, are all incomplete and risk losing ground all the time.
I’d say it’s a fair view, a mixed bag of consolation and concern as we move forward in a post-left, post-right world of populism and globalism, with cooperation advancing even as new conflicts loom.
Any reader also likely desires a set of solutions. How might the lessons of history be used to solve problems? These are largely left to the reader to think up, which is a slight disappointment. Many of us reading are of course fed up with populism and want to get on with global technocracy. Others might support limited protectionism and think of ways to capture and make use of populists, just like William of Orange exploited anti-Catholic sentiment for his own ends. I’ll read the conclusion again, but not surprisingly for such a fraught world, solution summarizing will always be the starkest challenge for historians.
There’s also a powerful literary technique here, which is to stick closely at all times to contemporary challenges, especially populist backlash against global capitalism, connecting today’s problems to the longer arc of historical change.
Critics will no doubt decry the short shrift given to slavery, and the preppy global Southerner’s take on subalterns and exploited classes. The western narrative of progress is enriched without being denied: simply put, participatory government and free markets can bring better lives to the many, even if the examples we can cite, from the USA to China, Singapore, the modern EU, and so on, are all incomplete and risk losing ground all the time.
I’d say it’s a fair view, a mixed bag of consolation and concern as we move forward in a post-left, post-right world of populism and globalism, with cooperation advancing even as new conflicts loom.
Any reader also likely desires a set of solutions. How might the lessons of history be used to solve problems? These are largely left to the reader to think up, which is a slight disappointment. Many of us reading are of course fed up with populism and want to get on with global technocracy. Others might support limited protectionism and think of ways to capture and make use of populists, just like William of Orange exploited anti-Catholic sentiment for his own ends. I’ll read the conclusion again, but not surprisingly for such a fraught world, solution summarizing will always be the starkest challenge for historians.
July 12, 2024
The long historic arc of this book was interesting. I appreciated learning about the birth of modern liberalism in the Dutch republic, how this liberalism organically spread to the UK then the US, and the failure - first in France, then in many other parts of the world - to impose liberalism from above (I also appreciated the many connections between urbanization and economic growth; p.43 on Dutch urbanization and p.88 on the lack of French urbanization at the time of the revolution).
But I always like listening to Zakaria on CNN because he is clear, well-reasoned, and above all concise. And this book's greatest moments come when Zakaria boils a complex idea into a pithy quote, my favorite being "Liberalism's great strength throughout history has been to free people from arbitrary constraints. Its great weakness has been the inability to fill the void when the old structures crumble." p.268. I do think the book could have been a little shorter, he sometimes repeats himself, but I did appreciate him summing up many famous works that I haven't had the time to read (Bowling Alone), was supposed to read for class but lazed out (The Thucydides Trap), or have read but enjoyed the refresher (The End of History).
Ultimately a good summation of liberalism; what it is, where it came from, and why its worth fighting for (which might have been a better title?)
But I always like listening to Zakaria on CNN because he is clear, well-reasoned, and above all concise. And this book's greatest moments come when Zakaria boils a complex idea into a pithy quote, my favorite being "Liberalism's great strength throughout history has been to free people from arbitrary constraints. Its great weakness has been the inability to fill the void when the old structures crumble." p.268. I do think the book could have been a little shorter, he sometimes repeats himself, but I did appreciate him summing up many famous works that I haven't had the time to read (Bowling Alone), was supposed to read for class but lazed out (The Thucydides Trap), or have read but enjoyed the refresher (The End of History).
Ultimately a good summation of liberalism; what it is, where it came from, and why its worth fighting for (which might have been a better title?)
May 10, 2024
I always like Zakariah’s analysis. In the volume he traced all the major revolutions, some peaceful like in UK and the Netherlands, and others bloody like in France and Russia. The aftermath can be more liberal democracy if the social infrastructure is already there (UK and Netherlands); return to dictatorship ensues if not.
Then he turns to the current geopolitical situation. He defended US action on both China and Russia; often China’s WTO entry is criticised as being too nice, and encircling Russia with NATO countries as being too strong. Both leads to bad outcomes: China steals US jobs and Russia started a war. He says only someone with a crystal ball would be able to do ‘just right’.
He also greatly admires Singapore’s late Lee Kuan Yew, for creating a country out of different races. We from Singapore love you too!
Then he turns to the current geopolitical situation. He defended US action on both China and Russia; often China’s WTO entry is criticised as being too nice, and encircling Russia with NATO countries as being too strong. Both leads to bad outcomes: China steals US jobs and Russia started a war. He says only someone with a crystal ball would be able to do ‘just right’.
He also greatly admires Singapore’s late Lee Kuan Yew, for creating a country out of different races. We from Singapore love you too!
April 12, 2024
"The liberal state, by contrast, does not tell its citizens what makes a good life; it leaves that to each individual. Instead, it puts in place a set of procedures—elections, free speech, courts—to help secure liberty, fair play, and equality of opportunity. Modern societies protect your life and liberty so that you may individually pursue happiness and fulfillment, defining it as you please so long as you do not impinge on anyone else’s ability to do the same."
Have recommended this book to several friends in the last few days. An interesting review of historical periods of change and identifications of current issues occurring throughout the world. His thesis explores the mindsets of societies successfully dealing with rapid change and those who do not. Much to think about as the world becomes smaller and technology advances.
Have recommended this book to several friends in the last few days. An interesting review of historical periods of change and identifications of current issues occurring throughout the world. His thesis explores the mindsets of societies successfully dealing with rapid change and those who do not. Much to think about as the world becomes smaller and technology advances.
May 8, 2024
Wonderful Read
Very well researched and presented. I hope many people will read and discuss. It provides many thoughts to consider this year as we get ready to vote on the kind of government we want to live with.
Very well researched and presented. I hope many people will read and discuss. It provides many thoughts to consider this year as we get ready to vote on the kind of government we want to live with.
June 16, 2024
A very readable book that explains how we might have gotten to the point where we are globally & politically. Lots of historical waypoints that make it easier to see how it could have happened. Highly recommend.
July 14, 2024
Very interesting and insightful. I particularly appreciated the discussion of the industrial revolution. But at times I was wanting more detail. And more of a through-story. Great audio narration by the author.
April 25, 2024
This was a very good read. I liked how the author was able to critique both the left and the right. He helped to explain a lot of current politics by pulling together key pieces of history, somewhat like Truman’s Rise and Triumph did philosophically.
June 2, 2024
Fareed Zakaria is one of my favorite public intellectuals whose GPS show on CNN I would gladly recommend to anyone interested in the current zeitgeist. I couldn’t pass by his latest book Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present.
The book is in many ways similar to the workings of Yuval Noah Harari as it conjures the powers of history to explain the present and possible future. Zakaria, quite like Harari, is able to write history in broad strokes focusing on global historical trends, and specifically revolutionary events in global history, that elucidate how our present liberal order came to be and help us better understand the backlash against new revolutionary shifts brought up by technology.
“British prime minister Tony Blair presciently observed in 2006 that the twenty-first century was seeing the fading of “traditional left-right lines.” Instead, the great divide was becoming “open versus closed.” Those who celebrate markets, trade, immigration, diversity, and open and free-wheeling technology are on one side of this divide, while those who view all these forces with some suspicion and want to close, slow, or shut them down are on the other. This divide does not map easily onto the old left-right one. One sign of a revolutionary age is that politics get scrambled along new lines,” notes Zakaria.
To help us understand the current trends, the author focuses our attention on the revolutions that shook the world and gradually led to the liberal world order which we enjoy today in the US and many other countries around the world.
He starts from the Netherlands which, as Zakaria claims, had the first liberal revolution in the world. By the seventeenth century, the tiny United Provinces of the Netherlands had become the wealthiest nation on the continent, boasting the highest per capita income. With the establishment of the Dutch Republic in 1588, the Dutch created a successful social, economic, and political order that would last some two hundred years and catapult them to the top of the ranks of nations.
Zakaria follows the Dutch success by the Glorious Revolution in England. The British like to claim that their island has never been successfully invaded since William the Conqueror came in 1066. That’s not quite right. England was successfully invaded in 1688, and by another William at that—William of Orange. The country has never been the same since that Dutch invasion almost 350 years ago, writes Zakaria.
Skipping pretty much all the crucial details for brevity, the Glorious Revolution led to the establishment of Constitutional Monarchy, assertion of Parliamentary sovereignty, formation of the modern political system in Britain. It also resulted in religious changes, namely the end of the Catholic monarchs and the Act of Toleration that granted freedom of worship to nonconformist Protestants. This marked a significant step towards religious tolerance and allowed for the Enlightenment ideas to take hold.
He contrasts the Glorious revolution with the French. The former happened pretty much evolutionarily without a radical shift preserving some parts of the old and familiar while changing the society without extreme violence.
The fruits of the French Revolution for the country that birthed it seemed meager: hindered economic growth, uncompetitive industries, a shorn empire. French trade as a share of GDP plummeted from 20 percent to 10 percent from 1790 to 1820. Most damning, when Napoleon was deposed in 1815, France’s level of industrialization had risen to match Britain’s—as of 1780. Post-revolutionary France was left decades behind its rival.
The French revolutionary era ended by enshrining Britain’s central place at the heart of the global political and economic order. The UK’s unmatched naval, trading, and industrial primacy would only grow throughout the coming era. It would be Britain, not France, whose model of reformist, liberal politics and economics would inspire nineteenth-century modernizers across the world. Once again, Hobsbawm put it best: “The (British) industrial revolution had swallowed the (French) political revolution.”
Zakaria brushes through a list of other revolutions largely inspired by the French, including the Russian Revolution without going into much detail on it considering it a similar failure.
In my view the gist of the book, its core is when Zakaria reaches the Industrial Age. He calls it “the mother of all revolutions,” and focuses largely on Britain as the country where it was initiated.
Zakaria explains, “To understand just how dramatic a break from the past the Industrial Revolution was, look at the “hockey-stick” graph of world GDP over the past two thousand years. As you can see, it was century after century of almost zero economic growth, and then, around the mid-1800s, a dramatic spike in global per capita GDP. This growth was unevenly distributed, initially concentrated in the West, and, we now know, vastly damaging to the environment. But make no mistake. It created the modern world, with all its wonders, its cruelties, its hypocrisies, and its glories.”
Explaining why it was Britain that took off while others didn’t, Zakaria believes it is the atmosphere that allowed tinkerers, mechanics, inventors flourish. And it was they, not the theoreticians, who launched the Industrial Revolution.
After lingering in the Old World, Zakaria switches to the Industrial Revolution in the United States, which he believes is even more crucial to US story than the American Revolution which in essence was a struggle for national independence.
Zakaria presents a pretty dense history of US politics and our current international liberal order. Next Zakaria draws our attention to the digital revolution, which is often called the Third Industrial Revolution. The Second One was a Technological one occurring in the 19th century. Zakaria takes us there too. There’s also potentially a Fourth one, that is what is arguably happening now and is provoked by the rise of AI and biotech.
Rather than changing our physical world, the info-tech revolution has created an entire new world — a digital world, full of universally accessible knowledge, the digitalization of almost every industry, endless mediums for entertainment, and new kinds of social connections. So while modes of transportation have not advanced as some predicted, think about what you can now do on an airplane flight or train ride that would have been pure science fiction to the travelers of the 1960s: instantly access virtually any movie, TV show, or book; talk to a friend or loved one; conduct your business (if you are a white-collar worker) nearly as effectively as if you were in the office.
Zakaria writes, “Quality of life has substantially improved for all, even while the many free goods and services made possible by the digital revolution are not fully captured in conventional metrics like GDP. Take the music industry. From 2004 to 2008, total revenue from music sales dropped from $12 billion to $7 billion. But it wasn’t as if people listened to less music; they merely did so in a new way. Over that same period, single-track downloads increased nearly tenfold from around 143 million to 1.4 billion[…]”
However, with all that progress comes an array of problems modern humans are faced with. Deterioration of communal ties, loneliness, mental health issues, etc.
You can pick up books by Pinker, Shermer, Harari, Snyder and many many others trying to hammer one crucial proposition — liberalism, that is classical liberalism which has led humanity to the world we enjoy today — is worth preserving. Other things have been tried. They didn’t work.
This book is similar to others in this respect. It offers, though, a really broad historical context specifically on revolutionary transformations we are witnessing and influenced by since this seems to be a major reason for anxieties so many people are feeling these days. The book is also newer and more focused on politics, not so much on the tech itself and its potential. Even the war in Ukraine has found its place on the book’s pages. Whereas China is called a challenger to the US-dominated liberal world order, Russia is called “a spoiler state.” In both cases, Chinese and Russian leaders feel that the liberal international order does not serve their interests and in some ways it threatens them. This resistance is also cultural. In 2022, Putin enacted a measure prohibiting the representation of LGBTQ relationships in any media. In 2023, he signed another law criminalizing all hormone treatments and surgeries used for gender transitions.
In the minds of people like Putin and Xi, liberalism is a form of ideological hegemony, an outgrowth of America’s post-Cold War geopolitical hegemony. Xi’s China is if anything even more determined than Russia to block Western contamination. It would not be too strong a claim to say that, in response to this threat, Xi has launched a softer and tamer version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, writes Zakaria.
Drawing many other examples of how this world order is challenged, Zakaria poses a question — whether liberalism is doomed. He also does not shy away from policy recommendations. Fareed offers, some part of that response involves specific policies and programs that strengthen communities and help people feel less adrift and insecure.
What he finally concludes is that liberalism, simply put, needs defense and progress needs to be gradual. “Today, the task for those who embrace the Enlightenment project, celebrate the progress we have made so far, and want to continue to move society forward is to learn from the struggles of the past. Don’t succumb to hubris and believe that every theoretical advance in rights is pure virtue and should be implemented today. Don’t treat the nation as a guinea pig for your latest scheme. Don’t impose change from above. Instead, work within the fabric of society, with actual communities and people, to educate, persuade, and convince them of your cause. Don’t give up on freedom of speech just because at any given moment you despise a message that is spreading far and wide. Don’t be seduced by identity politics—which is fundamentally illiberal, viewing people as categories rather than individuals. Moving too quickly and too forcefully will often cause more backlash than progress,” writes the author.
In conclusion, Zakaria writes, “modern civilization has given ordinary human beings greater freedom, wealth, and dignity than any before it. It has empowered billions of people in all kinds of ways. If it collapses, and the new dark ages arrive, it will be because in our myopia, our internecine squabbles, and our petty rivalries, we lost sight of the fact that we are the heirs to the greatest tradition in history, one that liberated the human mind and spirit, that created the modern world, and whose greatest achievements are yet to come.”
Highly recommend.
The book is in many ways similar to the workings of Yuval Noah Harari as it conjures the powers of history to explain the present and possible future. Zakaria, quite like Harari, is able to write history in broad strokes focusing on global historical trends, and specifically revolutionary events in global history, that elucidate how our present liberal order came to be and help us better understand the backlash against new revolutionary shifts brought up by technology.
“British prime minister Tony Blair presciently observed in 2006 that the twenty-first century was seeing the fading of “traditional left-right lines.” Instead, the great divide was becoming “open versus closed.” Those who celebrate markets, trade, immigration, diversity, and open and free-wheeling technology are on one side of this divide, while those who view all these forces with some suspicion and want to close, slow, or shut them down are on the other. This divide does not map easily onto the old left-right one. One sign of a revolutionary age is that politics get scrambled along new lines,” notes Zakaria.
To help us understand the current trends, the author focuses our attention on the revolutions that shook the world and gradually led to the liberal world order which we enjoy today in the US and many other countries around the world.
He starts from the Netherlands which, as Zakaria claims, had the first liberal revolution in the world. By the seventeenth century, the tiny United Provinces of the Netherlands had become the wealthiest nation on the continent, boasting the highest per capita income. With the establishment of the Dutch Republic in 1588, the Dutch created a successful social, economic, and political order that would last some two hundred years and catapult them to the top of the ranks of nations.
Zakaria follows the Dutch success by the Glorious Revolution in England. The British like to claim that their island has never been successfully invaded since William the Conqueror came in 1066. That’s not quite right. England was successfully invaded in 1688, and by another William at that—William of Orange. The country has never been the same since that Dutch invasion almost 350 years ago, writes Zakaria.
Skipping pretty much all the crucial details for brevity, the Glorious Revolution led to the establishment of Constitutional Monarchy, assertion of Parliamentary sovereignty, formation of the modern political system in Britain. It also resulted in religious changes, namely the end of the Catholic monarchs and the Act of Toleration that granted freedom of worship to nonconformist Protestants. This marked a significant step towards religious tolerance and allowed for the Enlightenment ideas to take hold.
He contrasts the Glorious revolution with the French. The former happened pretty much evolutionarily without a radical shift preserving some parts of the old and familiar while changing the society without extreme violence.
The fruits of the French Revolution for the country that birthed it seemed meager: hindered economic growth, uncompetitive industries, a shorn empire. French trade as a share of GDP plummeted from 20 percent to 10 percent from 1790 to 1820. Most damning, when Napoleon was deposed in 1815, France’s level of industrialization had risen to match Britain’s—as of 1780. Post-revolutionary France was left decades behind its rival.
The French revolutionary era ended by enshrining Britain’s central place at the heart of the global political and economic order. The UK’s unmatched naval, trading, and industrial primacy would only grow throughout the coming era. It would be Britain, not France, whose model of reformist, liberal politics and economics would inspire nineteenth-century modernizers across the world. Once again, Hobsbawm put it best: “The (British) industrial revolution had swallowed the (French) political revolution.”
Zakaria brushes through a list of other revolutions largely inspired by the French, including the Russian Revolution without going into much detail on it considering it a similar failure.
In my view the gist of the book, its core is when Zakaria reaches the Industrial Age. He calls it “the mother of all revolutions,” and focuses largely on Britain as the country where it was initiated.
Zakaria explains, “To understand just how dramatic a break from the past the Industrial Revolution was, look at the “hockey-stick” graph of world GDP over the past two thousand years. As you can see, it was century after century of almost zero economic growth, and then, around the mid-1800s, a dramatic spike in global per capita GDP. This growth was unevenly distributed, initially concentrated in the West, and, we now know, vastly damaging to the environment. But make no mistake. It created the modern world, with all its wonders, its cruelties, its hypocrisies, and its glories.”
Explaining why it was Britain that took off while others didn’t, Zakaria believes it is the atmosphere that allowed tinkerers, mechanics, inventors flourish. And it was they, not the theoreticians, who launched the Industrial Revolution.
After lingering in the Old World, Zakaria switches to the Industrial Revolution in the United States, which he believes is even more crucial to US story than the American Revolution which in essence was a struggle for national independence.
Zakaria presents a pretty dense history of US politics and our current international liberal order. Next Zakaria draws our attention to the digital revolution, which is often called the Third Industrial Revolution. The Second One was a Technological one occurring in the 19th century. Zakaria takes us there too. There’s also potentially a Fourth one, that is what is arguably happening now and is provoked by the rise of AI and biotech.
Rather than changing our physical world, the info-tech revolution has created an entire new world — a digital world, full of universally accessible knowledge, the digitalization of almost every industry, endless mediums for entertainment, and new kinds of social connections. So while modes of transportation have not advanced as some predicted, think about what you can now do on an airplane flight or train ride that would have been pure science fiction to the travelers of the 1960s: instantly access virtually any movie, TV show, or book; talk to a friend or loved one; conduct your business (if you are a white-collar worker) nearly as effectively as if you were in the office.
Zakaria writes, “Quality of life has substantially improved for all, even while the many free goods and services made possible by the digital revolution are not fully captured in conventional metrics like GDP. Take the music industry. From 2004 to 2008, total revenue from music sales dropped from $12 billion to $7 billion. But it wasn’t as if people listened to less music; they merely did so in a new way. Over that same period, single-track downloads increased nearly tenfold from around 143 million to 1.4 billion[…]”
However, with all that progress comes an array of problems modern humans are faced with. Deterioration of communal ties, loneliness, mental health issues, etc.
You can pick up books by Pinker, Shermer, Harari, Snyder and many many others trying to hammer one crucial proposition — liberalism, that is classical liberalism which has led humanity to the world we enjoy today — is worth preserving. Other things have been tried. They didn’t work.
This book is similar to others in this respect. It offers, though, a really broad historical context specifically on revolutionary transformations we are witnessing and influenced by since this seems to be a major reason for anxieties so many people are feeling these days. The book is also newer and more focused on politics, not so much on the tech itself and its potential. Even the war in Ukraine has found its place on the book’s pages. Whereas China is called a challenger to the US-dominated liberal world order, Russia is called “a spoiler state.” In both cases, Chinese and Russian leaders feel that the liberal international order does not serve their interests and in some ways it threatens them. This resistance is also cultural. In 2022, Putin enacted a measure prohibiting the representation of LGBTQ relationships in any media. In 2023, he signed another law criminalizing all hormone treatments and surgeries used for gender transitions.
In the minds of people like Putin and Xi, liberalism is a form of ideological hegemony, an outgrowth of America’s post-Cold War geopolitical hegemony. Xi’s China is if anything even more determined than Russia to block Western contamination. It would not be too strong a claim to say that, in response to this threat, Xi has launched a softer and tamer version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, writes Zakaria.
Drawing many other examples of how this world order is challenged, Zakaria poses a question — whether liberalism is doomed. He also does not shy away from policy recommendations. Fareed offers, some part of that response involves specific policies and programs that strengthen communities and help people feel less adrift and insecure.
What he finally concludes is that liberalism, simply put, needs defense and progress needs to be gradual. “Today, the task for those who embrace the Enlightenment project, celebrate the progress we have made so far, and want to continue to move society forward is to learn from the struggles of the past. Don’t succumb to hubris and believe that every theoretical advance in rights is pure virtue and should be implemented today. Don’t treat the nation as a guinea pig for your latest scheme. Don’t impose change from above. Instead, work within the fabric of society, with actual communities and people, to educate, persuade, and convince them of your cause. Don’t give up on freedom of speech just because at any given moment you despise a message that is spreading far and wide. Don’t be seduced by identity politics—which is fundamentally illiberal, viewing people as categories rather than individuals. Moving too quickly and too forcefully will often cause more backlash than progress,” writes the author.
In conclusion, Zakaria writes, “modern civilization has given ordinary human beings greater freedom, wealth, and dignity than any before it. It has empowered billions of people in all kinds of ways. If it collapses, and the new dark ages arrive, it will be because in our myopia, our internecine squabbles, and our petty rivalries, we lost sight of the fact that we are the heirs to the greatest tradition in history, one that liberated the human mind and spirit, that created the modern world, and whose greatest achievements are yet to come.”
Highly recommend.
April 7, 2024
Zakaria provides a tidy summary of some key moments in modern history and then provides a concise summary of recent trends. His fondness for classical liberalism imbues his analysis with an optimistic perspective. I found his suggestions and predictions practical and grounded.
April 18, 2024
Age of Revolutions Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Fareed Zakaria, 2024
For those who have lived through the last 50 or 60 years as adults, those, especially those in the US and Western Europe, have experienced one of the most profound social, technological, and scientific revolutions in human history. Today we see a black attorney general in NYC, a black woman NY state attorney, a black woman attorney general in Atlanta prosecuting a former President of the United States and a black woman DC federal judge presiding over a criminal case against a former President of the US. Today we have a black woman Vice President, 12 women governors, 52 women CEOs of fortune 500 companies. 60 years ago, before Woman’s liberation and equal rights, all of this would have been impossible. 60 years ago, the US was just beginning the technical revolution that would bring forth AI, iPhones, and the worldwide web. 60 years ago we were just beginning the genetic revolution that would establish the knowledge of the genetic inheritance of the human race and would bring forth technologies such as gene editing and GMO crops. This explosion of human knowledge, changes in social hierarchy and communications have had profound effects on human identity and beliefs and this has generated a powerful backlash which promises to restore the good old days. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are a direct consequence of this backlash. Fareed Zakarias new book tries to explain and shed light on our current situation by going back to similar revolutions in the past, how they transformed societies of their day and provoked backlashes. What can we learn from revolutions in the past, those that caused human and social progress and those that engendered destructive backlash?
Where would one look to find the first revolution that began the transition to the modern world? Zakaria claims, contrary to logic, it was not the Global powers of the day, France, or Spain, but the tiny country of the Netherlands. The Union of Utrecht in1580 effectively ended Spanish Catholic domination and brought together the various provinces under a new government that emphasized decentralization over centralization, allowing only a few select functions to the central government, allowed freedom of religion. The economy was turned over to private enterprise; the Amsterdam stock market became a place where anyone could raise money for a business venture. The Dutch East India Company established in 1602 became the first investor owned, multinational trading corporation and the largest commercial enterprise the world had ever known. The Bank of Amsterdam, created in 1609 facilitated the exchange of currencies and allowed people to make deposits, pay debts and borrow money. This new source of capital and entrepreneurship spurred a technological revolution in ship building leading the Netherlands to leadership in the efficiency and carrying capacity of their ships with shipping costs that were sometimes half of their competitors. For over 150 years the Netherlands dominated global shipping with a fleet larger than France, England and Spain combined.
You would expect that a technological and social revolution on this scale would threaten the ruling European Monarchs, Aristocracy and the Catholic Church and it did. The Netherlands 80-year war with the Habsburg Empire and the attempted invasion by Louis XIV, of which neither were successful, could be said to be direct blowback. It was inevitable that the Dutch revolution would spread across the channel to England. In a revolt against the Catholic church and an autocratic monarchy, Charles I lost his head only to be replaced by a military dictatorship under the puritanical Oliver Cromwell. In 1688 in what is called the Glorius Revolution The British monarchy was replaced by a Dutchman from a leading family, William of Orange who along with his co-sovereign Mary Stuart brought the modernizing and liberal innovations of the Dutch Republic to England. “The England’s merchant class thus became the ballast for ship of state as modernization began in earnest.” All this paved the way for the dominance of the British East India Company and the burgeoning economy that led to the economic, political and worldwide dominance of the British Empire which in time would far surpass that of the Dutch. The economic and political infrastructure established in this period would enable England to be the first to fully exploit the discovery of fossil fuels which would lead to one of the most significant and far-ranging revolutions of all time; The Industrial Revolution which would alter the societies and lives of billions of people across the planet.
Zakaria also explores revolutions that failed which include the French Revolution and the Communist Revolutions and concludes they failed for the major reason that they were instigated by small revolutionary cliques from the top down rather than the bottom up as most successful, lasting revolutions. As for France: “Ancien Regime France may have been dazzled by the spectacle of “Protestant capitalism but it failed to absorb the deeper societal features of classical liberalism, pluralism, and competition that fueled Anglo-Dutch success.” In the end the revolt which started as an aspiration for an end to a tyrannical monarchy and freedom for the people ended in dictatorship and disastrous toxic nationalism and war.
How does Zacharia relate what is happening now in the US to the revolutions of the past? Particularly significant is that we are amid four profound revolutions: a globalization revolution, a scientific, technological revolution, a social revolution, and a geopolitical revolution, each one engendering its own and connected backlash. Globalization becoming ubiquitous after WWII promised an interdependent world where all would benefit from increased prosperity and no nation would have an interest in war. As it has turned out the peace part was partly true but the other part true for the increase in living standards also partially true especially for the corporations and global elites but not true for the millions whose livelihoods have been disrupted especially those in the smokestack industries who lost their jobs due to outsourcing. While the technological revolution has disrupted livelihoods it has also profoundly altered communal life. As Zakaria says: “ As the digital revolution has created new forms of communal engagement, it has created new forms of rot within society. Digitalization has decimated local communities, and traditional affiliations have weakened as younger generations have shifted their lives online. Was this a Faustian bargain? We have gotten convenience and efficiency at the cost of losing civic engagement, intimacy, and authenticity…. Amid such dislocation, people are drawn to fringe online communities- or even reject modernity itself, turning away from liberal democracy, economic growth, and technological progress.” We are also now in the midst of a sexual social revolution. “For thousands of years, domination of women by men has been a fundamental feature of human society.” First came the 19th amendment in 1920 guaranteeing women the right to vote, then Griswold protecting the right of contraception, then Roe vs Wade in 1973 recognizing the right to abortion. These rulings have empowered and enabled women to take political and economic power positions throughout society as well as outperforming men in terms of educational attainment to professional degrees and positions. This has caused a powerful backlash by the patriarchal establishment as we have just witnessed in the Dobbs decision. Attainments in the realm of racial political and economic rights have also engendered their own white backlash. The geopolitical revolution, the rise of new economic and military powers such as India and China are destabilizing global power politics into a period of profound uncertainty.
Will we make it through this turbulent period without destroying each other and all we have achieved: As Fareed says: Why did a civilization like Rome – that was once dominant, technologically advanced, cultured, and prosperous collapse into the barbarism of the Middle Ages? “It is lack of confidence more than anything that kills a civilization. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Modern civilization has given ordinary human beings greater wealth, freedom, and dignity than any before it. If it collapses, and the new dark ages arrive, it will be because in our myopia, our internecine squabbles, and petty rivalries, we lost sight of the fact that we are heirs to the greatest tradition in history, one that liberated the human mind and spirit, that created the modern world, and whose greatest achievements are yet to come.”
I usually don’t read or recommend books by TV journalists or celebrities, but Zakaria is a rare breed; a compelling reporter of world events but also a sharp analytic mind that wrestles with complex world issues and sheds insight and understanding. A book that should be read in this turbulent political year. JACK
For those who have lived through the last 50 or 60 years as adults, those, especially those in the US and Western Europe, have experienced one of the most profound social, technological, and scientific revolutions in human history. Today we see a black attorney general in NYC, a black woman NY state attorney, a black woman attorney general in Atlanta prosecuting a former President of the United States and a black woman DC federal judge presiding over a criminal case against a former President of the US. Today we have a black woman Vice President, 12 women governors, 52 women CEOs of fortune 500 companies. 60 years ago, before Woman’s liberation and equal rights, all of this would have been impossible. 60 years ago, the US was just beginning the technical revolution that would bring forth AI, iPhones, and the worldwide web. 60 years ago we were just beginning the genetic revolution that would establish the knowledge of the genetic inheritance of the human race and would bring forth technologies such as gene editing and GMO crops. This explosion of human knowledge, changes in social hierarchy and communications have had profound effects on human identity and beliefs and this has generated a powerful backlash which promises to restore the good old days. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are a direct consequence of this backlash. Fareed Zakarias new book tries to explain and shed light on our current situation by going back to similar revolutions in the past, how they transformed societies of their day and provoked backlashes. What can we learn from revolutions in the past, those that caused human and social progress and those that engendered destructive backlash?
Where would one look to find the first revolution that began the transition to the modern world? Zakaria claims, contrary to logic, it was not the Global powers of the day, France, or Spain, but the tiny country of the Netherlands. The Union of Utrecht in1580 effectively ended Spanish Catholic domination and brought together the various provinces under a new government that emphasized decentralization over centralization, allowing only a few select functions to the central government, allowed freedom of religion. The economy was turned over to private enterprise; the Amsterdam stock market became a place where anyone could raise money for a business venture. The Dutch East India Company established in 1602 became the first investor owned, multinational trading corporation and the largest commercial enterprise the world had ever known. The Bank of Amsterdam, created in 1609 facilitated the exchange of currencies and allowed people to make deposits, pay debts and borrow money. This new source of capital and entrepreneurship spurred a technological revolution in ship building leading the Netherlands to leadership in the efficiency and carrying capacity of their ships with shipping costs that were sometimes half of their competitors. For over 150 years the Netherlands dominated global shipping with a fleet larger than France, England and Spain combined.
You would expect that a technological and social revolution on this scale would threaten the ruling European Monarchs, Aristocracy and the Catholic Church and it did. The Netherlands 80-year war with the Habsburg Empire and the attempted invasion by Louis XIV, of which neither were successful, could be said to be direct blowback. It was inevitable that the Dutch revolution would spread across the channel to England. In a revolt against the Catholic church and an autocratic monarchy, Charles I lost his head only to be replaced by a military dictatorship under the puritanical Oliver Cromwell. In 1688 in what is called the Glorius Revolution The British monarchy was replaced by a Dutchman from a leading family, William of Orange who along with his co-sovereign Mary Stuart brought the modernizing and liberal innovations of the Dutch Republic to England. “The England’s merchant class thus became the ballast for ship of state as modernization began in earnest.” All this paved the way for the dominance of the British East India Company and the burgeoning economy that led to the economic, political and worldwide dominance of the British Empire which in time would far surpass that of the Dutch. The economic and political infrastructure established in this period would enable England to be the first to fully exploit the discovery of fossil fuels which would lead to one of the most significant and far-ranging revolutions of all time; The Industrial Revolution which would alter the societies and lives of billions of people across the planet.
Zakaria also explores revolutions that failed which include the French Revolution and the Communist Revolutions and concludes they failed for the major reason that they were instigated by small revolutionary cliques from the top down rather than the bottom up as most successful, lasting revolutions. As for France: “Ancien Regime France may have been dazzled by the spectacle of “Protestant capitalism but it failed to absorb the deeper societal features of classical liberalism, pluralism, and competition that fueled Anglo-Dutch success.” In the end the revolt which started as an aspiration for an end to a tyrannical monarchy and freedom for the people ended in dictatorship and disastrous toxic nationalism and war.
How does Zacharia relate what is happening now in the US to the revolutions of the past? Particularly significant is that we are amid four profound revolutions: a globalization revolution, a scientific, technological revolution, a social revolution, and a geopolitical revolution, each one engendering its own and connected backlash. Globalization becoming ubiquitous after WWII promised an interdependent world where all would benefit from increased prosperity and no nation would have an interest in war. As it has turned out the peace part was partly true but the other part true for the increase in living standards also partially true especially for the corporations and global elites but not true for the millions whose livelihoods have been disrupted especially those in the smokestack industries who lost their jobs due to outsourcing. While the technological revolution has disrupted livelihoods it has also profoundly altered communal life. As Zakaria says: “ As the digital revolution has created new forms of communal engagement, it has created new forms of rot within society. Digitalization has decimated local communities, and traditional affiliations have weakened as younger generations have shifted their lives online. Was this a Faustian bargain? We have gotten convenience and efficiency at the cost of losing civic engagement, intimacy, and authenticity…. Amid such dislocation, people are drawn to fringe online communities- or even reject modernity itself, turning away from liberal democracy, economic growth, and technological progress.” We are also now in the midst of a sexual social revolution. “For thousands of years, domination of women by men has been a fundamental feature of human society.” First came the 19th amendment in 1920 guaranteeing women the right to vote, then Griswold protecting the right of contraception, then Roe vs Wade in 1973 recognizing the right to abortion. These rulings have empowered and enabled women to take political and economic power positions throughout society as well as outperforming men in terms of educational attainment to professional degrees and positions. This has caused a powerful backlash by the patriarchal establishment as we have just witnessed in the Dobbs decision. Attainments in the realm of racial political and economic rights have also engendered their own white backlash. The geopolitical revolution, the rise of new economic and military powers such as India and China are destabilizing global power politics into a period of profound uncertainty.
Will we make it through this turbulent period without destroying each other and all we have achieved: As Fareed says: Why did a civilization like Rome – that was once dominant, technologically advanced, cultured, and prosperous collapse into the barbarism of the Middle Ages? “It is lack of confidence more than anything that kills a civilization. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Modern civilization has given ordinary human beings greater wealth, freedom, and dignity than any before it. If it collapses, and the new dark ages arrive, it will be because in our myopia, our internecine squabbles, and petty rivalries, we lost sight of the fact that we are heirs to the greatest tradition in history, one that liberated the human mind and spirit, that created the modern world, and whose greatest achievements are yet to come.”
I usually don’t read or recommend books by TV journalists or celebrities, but Zakaria is a rare breed; a compelling reporter of world events but also a sharp analytic mind that wrestles with complex world issues and sheds insight and understanding. A book that should be read in this turbulent political year. JACK
June 7, 2024
This was very well written! I expected to only read about political revolutions, so I surprised to see how the author tied technological progress in as the driver for many social changes. After finishing this book, it’s clear that history definitely repeats itself, for better or worse.
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