Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from
1600 to the Present – March 26, 2024
by Fareed Zakaria (Author)
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.
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