Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present

by Fareed Zakaria Narrated by Fareed Zakaria

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From Fareed Zakaria, one of the leading global thinkers and intellectual influencers, Age of Revolutions details the ongoing impact of past revolutions, and how they still reverberate into the present.

The internationally bestselling author explores the revolutions-past and present-that define the chaotic, polarized, and unstable age in which we live.

Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, geopolitical dangers, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk-the early decades of the 21st century may be one of the most revolutionary periods in modern history. But they are not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What makes an age a revolutionary one? And how do they end?

In this major new work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates eras that have shattered and shaped humanity. Four such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in 17th-century Netherlands a series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world-and created modern politics as we know it today. The “Glorious Revolution” in Britain showed that major political change could happen peacefully. Next, the French Revolution, a dramatic decade and a half that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us to this day. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world. Against these paradigm-shifting historical eras, Zakaria describes our current situation, unpacking the four revolutions we are living through now; in globalization, technology, identity, and geopolitics.

As few public intellectuals can, Zakaria combines intellectual range, deep historical insight, and uncanny prescience to reframe and illuminate a turbulent present.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Few thinkers can grasp the complexity of this moment, but Fareed Zakaria does it masterfully."— Eric Schmidt Wall Street Journal

"Powerful…Zakaria’s book will help readers feel honored and grateful that we get to be part of this glorious and ongoing liberal journey. He understands that we liberals can’t just offer economic benefits; we also have to make the spiritual and civic case for our way of life."— David Brooks New York Times

"Zakaria has figured out policy wonkery and TV, and many points between. The Indian-born pundit could thus claim to be America’s best-known tutor on world events. Even by his standards, however, Age of Revolutions is breathtakingly ambitious.… Age of Revolutions successfully bridges the divide between the general reader and the academic. It is an easy read that offers fresh perspective. That is no mean feat."— Edward Luce Financial Times

"This is the indispensable book for understanding the world today. Fareed Zakaria tackles the central question of our age: What are the causes of the seismic social disruptions we are going through and the political backlashes that have ensued? Connecting five centuries of history to a deep understanding of our current anxieties, he shows how transformations in technology, economics, and politics interact. We are living through one of the most revolutionary ages in history, and the resulting disruptions have led to a clash between those who celebrate progress, open markets, and technology versus those who resist them. Zakaria argues that we must infuse our journey forward with moral meaning and restore a sense of pride in the ideals of freedom, individual rights, and democracy. The result is both a fascinating look at history and an inspiring vision for the future."— Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Einstein, among others

"Congrats to @FareedZakaria on his dazzling new book, Age of Revolutions, out later this month. So much in it! I found myself marking passage after passage, fact after fact. You gain 10 IQ points just reading this book."— Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist via X

"[Is] the rot in the system fixable or fatal? In his book, Zakaria performs an invaluable service in framing these questions precisely the right way. How sturdy, in the end, will the American and global systems prove against all these hurricane-force winds of change? What’s at stake is modernity itself."— Michael Hirsh Foreign Policy

"Zakaria believes that we can and do make progress. But he is wary of the assumption that history tends to move in the direction of ever-greater human flourishing.… Zakaria’s book represents an attempt to distinguish between revolutions that have inspired thermostatic reactions and revolutions that have endured."— Gideon Lewis-Kraus The New Yorker

"Zakaria [is] a lively writer and good storyteller.… Zakaria warns against revolutions that move too fast and displace too many people; it now seems that’s exactly what went wrong in the last 40 years with the rise of the global economy."— Tim Wu New York Times

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-01-17
Of revolutions good and bad, born of intentions good and evil.

In this wide-ranging historical survey, political commentator Zakaria, author of The Post-American World, considers the present era to be “revolutionary in the commonly used sense of the word,” involving fundamental changes marked not necessarily by advances but instead retreats into ideologies once overcome. Donald Trump, in this regard, is “part of a global trend,” the proponent of a politics of resentment against the other, whether nonwhite newcomers or members of the so-called urban elite. Some revolutions have had better angels at their hearts. The establishment of the Dutch Republic, for example, brought with it a “celebration of individual rights…[and] toleration of religious minorities,” along with an entrepreneurial spirit that made Holland the wealthiest nation on the planet. Similarly, the British government supported inventors and technological innovation after the Glorious Revolution, which introduced “parliamentary rule and market capitalism,” giving the nation a decided leg up on more hidebound neighbors. Throughout this intellectually stimulating book, Zakaria asks and answers large questions, such as why the U.S., alone among industrial nations, never developed a socialist movement. (One part of the answer is that the U.S. never experienced feudalism as such, and its ruling class “obscured the strict lines of class conflict that fed socialism.”) Absent socialism, the country instead developed a liberal democracy along the lines of the old Dutch Republic, for better and worse. Zakaria writes, “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.” That’s about where we are today, with old structures collapsing on every side and no fresh solutions in view—certainly, the author concludes, not from the right wing.

A thought-provoking tour of recent history and its considerable discontents.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175664288
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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