Day #319
Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria
What first drew me to this book was the fact that it took Fareed 10 year to write it. That’s a long time to bring a book from concept to publication. He ended up writing two other books in the interim in order to better present this topic. As I anticipated, it was a very good read. What made it good was the clear explanation of how progress is often (indeed, almost always) followed by periods of counter-progress.
We are facing a period in our history where the liberal order of the Post WW-II period is now being challenged by conservative, many would say reactionary forces. Viewed from the sweep of history, this is really nothing new. Fareed demonstrates clearly how progress has always been accompanied by periods of push-back. One of many examples was how the democratic revolution in France in the 18th Century ultimately led to the rise of Napoleon. There are no shortages of such examples throughout history.
Lately I’ve been feeling like we were heading toward another Robespierre/Napolean moment in history. I’m feeling much better now that Joe has woken up and handed the torch to someone younger, and more likely to defeat that scenario. I appreciate the fact that the word “woken” contains the word “woke.” That makes me smile.
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