The Light That Failed: A Reckoning

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Insightful analysis of liberalism's contemporary crisis.

If you're puzzled by the shifts in global politics, "The Light That Failed: A Reckoning" is the kind of read that could illuminate things for you. It's a deep dive into the evolution, or rather, the devolution of liberalism since the fall of the Iron Curtain. With its focus on political psychology and the age-old human resentment of imitation, it enlightens the reader on why Eastern Europe regards Westernization with such mixed feelings, and how this has come to influence politics even in the US. Think of it as a map that outlines how we arrived at the current state of the world, and it's written by two intellectuals who have been keen observers of the divide between East and West.

  • Lionel Gelber Prize (2020)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

The Light That Failed: A Reckoning

Regular price
Unit price
per
Compare to estimated retail price: RM65.00 MYR  
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ISBN: 9780141988108
Publisher: Penguin
Date of Publication: 2020-05-07
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Sociology, History, Politics, Philosophy
Goodreads rating: 4.16
(rated by 1415 readers)

Description

Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this work of political psychology, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned out to be only the beginning of an Age of Imitation. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe stems from resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized. Through this prism, the Trump revolution represents an ironic fulfillment of the promise that the nations exiting from communist rule would come to resemble the United States. In a strange twist, Trump has elevated Putin's Russia and Orbán's Hungary into models for the United States.
 

Insightful analysis of liberalism's contemporary crisis.

If you're puzzled by the shifts in global politics, "The Light That Failed: A Reckoning" is the kind of read that could illuminate things for you. It's a deep dive into the evolution, or rather, the devolution of liberalism since the fall of the Iron Curtain. With its focus on political psychology and the age-old human resentment of imitation, it enlightens the reader on why Eastern Europe regards Westernization with such mixed feelings, and how this has come to influence politics even in the US. Think of it as a map that outlines how we arrived at the current state of the world, and it's written by two intellectuals who have been keen observers of the divide between East and West.

  • Lionel Gelber Prize (2020)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.