Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason

In this sweeping and provocative work, political economist William Davies draws on a four-hundred-year history of ideas to reframe our understanding of the contemporary world. He argues that global trends decades and even centuries in the making have reduced a world of logic and fact into one driven by emotions-particularly fear and anxiety. This has ushered in an age of "nervous states," both in our individual bodies and our body politic.



Eloquently tracing the history of accounting, statis...