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Tribal Future of the West
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that liberal democracy marked “the end of history.” Yet the decades since have told another 9/11 and the War on Terror, the 2008 financial crisis, the populist revolts of the 2010s, the world-stopping pandemic of 2020, and the rise of global multipolarity. Far from ending conflict, liberalism has reopened the Schmittian question—friend or enemy—with renewed force. The dream of a post-political world of all friends and no foes now recedes in the rearview mirror.
But the crisis runs deeper than geopolitics. Liberalism has become the architect of its own unravelling. By dissolving the social capital on which it depended—trust, identity, hierarchy—it has sawn through the branch on which it sits. When that branch finally gives way, what follows will not be chaos, but the migration of sovereignty from states to smaller, tighter, more organic units of power.
Drawing on elite theory, comparative history, and insurgency studies, Maxwell shows how fragmentation follows a recognizable pattern. Where ancient empires decayed, new loyalties condensed in families and warbands; where absolutist monarchies faltered, the managerial elite rose. Today’s West is reverting to its ancestral state—a neo-medieval patchwork of overlapping jurisdictions and rival moral codes. The result is not mere decline but the birth of a different political ecology in which legitimacy must once again be earned face-to-face, not proclaimed from the centre—the age of tribal politics dawns.
Liberalism was never history’s conclusion but its a brief suspension between centralized empire and the tribal orders now re-emerging. Tribal Future of the West is a guide to that passage and a field manual for what comes after liberal modernity.
But the crisis runs deeper than geopolitics. Liberalism has become the architect of its own unravelling. By dissolving the social capital on which it depended—trust, identity, hierarchy—it has sawn through the branch on which it sits. When that branch finally gives way, what follows will not be chaos, but the migration of sovereignty from states to smaller, tighter, more organic units of power.
Drawing on elite theory, comparative history, and insurgency studies, Maxwell shows how fragmentation follows a recognizable pattern. Where ancient empires decayed, new loyalties condensed in families and warbands; where absolutist monarchies faltered, the managerial elite rose. Today’s West is reverting to its ancestral state—a neo-medieval patchwork of overlapping jurisdictions and rival moral codes. The result is not mere decline but the birth of a different political ecology in which legitimacy must once again be earned face-to-face, not proclaimed from the centre—the age of tribal politics dawns.
Liberalism was never history’s conclusion but its a brief suspension between centralized empire and the tribal orders now re-emerging. Tribal Future of the West is a guide to that passage and a field manual for what comes after liberal modernity.
494 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 18, 2025
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May 21, 2026
A well written and clearly structured, but ultimately unconvincing book that argues that the western world is experiencing crises that will lead to a devolution of authority down from a centralised state to smaller localized types of authority more akin to tribe and earlier forms of civilization.
Maxwell demonstrates clearly the mechanisms by which authority breaks down under strain and how in times of genuine crisis such as war or collapse of empire people turn to local gangs, warlords, or local strongmen to provide structure when centralized authority becomes distant and weak.
Where his argument is less convincing is in relating this to the western liberal world. While our world is undeniably under strain, it is nowhere near the sort of conditions that would be required for central authority to collapse. The book relies on theories of three different researchers, Richard Norton, Barbara Walter and David Betz. Betz made a name for himself on the podcast circuit in 2024/25 with his idea that Britain was in the early stages of civil war. His idea generated a lot of interest and was heavily promoted by the semi-alternative media such as Triggernometry, New Culture Forum, Andrew Gold and GB News.
The book suggests that a hollowed out centre will collapse into sectarian violence, but without outside influence or specific historic conditions i don't believe this is the case. Betz (and by extension Maxwell) uses the example of Yugoslavia in the 1990s but he doesn't acknowledge that only three or four generations before the area was under collapsing Ottoman rule; that is was the site of war atrocities in the 1940s that were still within living memory; that it was held together by a man who died only a decade before the conflict; that it had been artificially supported by the USSR which itself collapsed a couple of years before the conflict; and finally that it was subject to interference from western Europe, USA and Russia who all wanted to influence the outcome of this first post-Soviet war.
He also uses Northern Ireland as an example, treating it as if it was just a conflict between two sectarian groups without acknowledging that it was the final phase of an existing civil war (or war of independence if you prefer) that had been ongoing at least since the 1920s.
Failed states and feral cities across the Middle East and Africa are in a large part result of deliberate policy by USA, Israel and Britain to foment chaos and undermine the structures that had been built up in the 20th century. They did not simply happen because the people lost faith in their government.
Britain in 2026 is nowhere near these conditions. Yes, there are tensions caused by multiculturalism and there is a lack of faith in the institutions to do anything about it. Yes, the infrastructure is under strain and things don’t work as well as they used to. Yes, there is an alternative media landscape that allows dissident voices to be heard. But this is not enough to cause the sort of devolution of power that Maxwell describes.
In a true post-conflict scenario following a war or civilization-scale disaster, these mechanisms could come into play but without that, why would it happen? The chapter on Objections and Rebuttals notably does not deal with the central question of who the two sides are supposed to be in a civil war. For a civil war, the bare minimum is two sides. Who are these sides? There is no opposition to liberalism other than a handful of people talking online.
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy reading and listening to Maxwell particularly on cultural matters. He has done a great job with Imperium Press giving voice to diverse opinions both old and new. He is clear and concise writer and the book is well referenced and structured. It is definitely worth reading but I'm afraid I just don’t buy the central argument.
Maxwell demonstrates clearly the mechanisms by which authority breaks down under strain and how in times of genuine crisis such as war or collapse of empire people turn to local gangs, warlords, or local strongmen to provide structure when centralized authority becomes distant and weak.
Where his argument is less convincing is in relating this to the western liberal world. While our world is undeniably under strain, it is nowhere near the sort of conditions that would be required for central authority to collapse. The book relies on theories of three different researchers, Richard Norton, Barbara Walter and David Betz. Betz made a name for himself on the podcast circuit in 2024/25 with his idea that Britain was in the early stages of civil war. His idea generated a lot of interest and was heavily promoted by the semi-alternative media such as Triggernometry, New Culture Forum, Andrew Gold and GB News.
The book suggests that a hollowed out centre will collapse into sectarian violence, but without outside influence or specific historic conditions i don't believe this is the case. Betz (and by extension Maxwell) uses the example of Yugoslavia in the 1990s but he doesn't acknowledge that only three or four generations before the area was under collapsing Ottoman rule; that is was the site of war atrocities in the 1940s that were still within living memory; that it was held together by a man who died only a decade before the conflict; that it had been artificially supported by the USSR which itself collapsed a couple of years before the conflict; and finally that it was subject to interference from western Europe, USA and Russia who all wanted to influence the outcome of this first post-Soviet war.
He also uses Northern Ireland as an example, treating it as if it was just a conflict between two sectarian groups without acknowledging that it was the final phase of an existing civil war (or war of independence if you prefer) that had been ongoing at least since the 1920s.
Failed states and feral cities across the Middle East and Africa are in a large part result of deliberate policy by USA, Israel and Britain to foment chaos and undermine the structures that had been built up in the 20th century. They did not simply happen because the people lost faith in their government.
Britain in 2026 is nowhere near these conditions. Yes, there are tensions caused by multiculturalism and there is a lack of faith in the institutions to do anything about it. Yes, the infrastructure is under strain and things don’t work as well as they used to. Yes, there is an alternative media landscape that allows dissident voices to be heard. But this is not enough to cause the sort of devolution of power that Maxwell describes.
In a true post-conflict scenario following a war or civilization-scale disaster, these mechanisms could come into play but without that, why would it happen? The chapter on Objections and Rebuttals notably does not deal with the central question of who the two sides are supposed to be in a civil war. For a civil war, the bare minimum is two sides. Who are these sides? There is no opposition to liberalism other than a handful of people talking online.
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoy reading and listening to Maxwell particularly on cultural matters. He has done a great job with Imperium Press giving voice to diverse opinions both old and new. He is clear and concise writer and the book is well referenced and structured. It is definitely worth reading but I'm afraid I just don’t buy the central argument.
Displaying 1 of 1 review