The Politics of Nostalgia: Class, Rootlessness and Decline

For ordinary people today, the future seems dark and forbidding. In generations gone by, parents looked forward with optimism, confident their children would do better. Not anymore. Standards of living continue to fall. Our institutions seem redundant, our cities dilapidated and dysfunctional. Electoral systems seem incapable of driving positive change. What is there to be optimistic about?

A multiplicity of escalating pressures and a growing fear of the future encourage people to look to t...