AGE OF ANGER

One of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisis

Modernity, secularism, development, and progress have long been viewed by the powerful few as benign ideals for the many. Today, however, botched experiments in nation-building, democracy, industrialization, and urbanization visibly scar much of the world.

As once happened in Europe, the wider embrace of revolutionary politics, mass movements, technology, the pursuit of wealth, and individualism has cast billions adrift in a literally demoralized world.

It was from among the ranks of the disaffected and the spiritually disorientated, that the militants of the nineteenth century arose—angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally.

Many more people today, unable to fulfill the promises—freedom, stability, and prosperity—of a globalized economy, are increasingly susceptible to demagogues and their simplifications. A common reaction among them is intense hatred of supposed villains, the invention of enemies, attempts to recapture a lost golden age, unfocused fury and self-empowerment through spectacular violence.

In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra explores the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world—from American “shooters” and ISIS to Trump, Modi, and racism and misogyny on social media.

Unul dintre cei mai importanti intelectuali publici ai nostri dezvaluie istoria ascunsa a actualei noastre crize globale Modernitatea, secularismul, dezvoltarea si progresul au fost mult timp vazute de putini puternici ca idealuri benigne pentru multi. Astazi, totusi, experimentele deranjate in construirea natiunii, democratia, industrializarea si urbanizarea sparg vizibil o mare parte a lumii. Asa cum sa intamplat odata in Europa, imbratisarea mai larga a politicii revolutionare, a miscarilor de masa, a tehnologiei, a cautarii bogatiei si a individualismului a aruncat miliarde in deriva intr-o lume literalmente demoralizata. Din randul celor dezamagiti si dezorientati spiritual, au aparut militantii secolului al XIX-lea - tineri furiosi care au devenit nationalisti culturali in Germania, revolutionari mesianici in Rusia, sovinisti belicosi in Italia si teroristii anarhisti la nivel international. Multi oameni din zilele noastre, incapabili sa indeplineasca promisiunile - libertatea, stabilitatea si prosperitatea - unei economii globalizate, sunt din ce in ce mai susceptibili la demagogi si simplificari ale acestora.