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The Fall of the West: How They Really Lost It
From the critically acclaimed author of The Establishment, an excoriating take-down of Western hubris – and the book that reveals why we’re really in the state we’re in.
Almost everywhere we turn these days, there’s talk of a West in decline. Our jobs, our values, our past are all under attack, in the face of which we have become immersed in self-loathing, gone weak at the the West needs to be Made Great Again. We know where this toxic narrative comes the nationalist, nativist Right. And now it’s gone mainstream.
The thing is, the West is in decline, self-evidently so. But the truth is that it’s not migrants or Muslims or a woke mob which has brought the West to the edge of catastrophe. It’s good, old-fashioned hubris.
In this blistering new book, Owen Jones explores how, amid the triumphalist sugar rush that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West came to believe that its rule, its economic order, its moral values, would endure for ever – and how, over a quarter-century, this brittle self-mythologising narrative collapsed in on itself. From Afghanistan and Iraq, to the economic crash of 2008 and Gaza today, he takes us on a journey to show how the West went from scoring what it believed was its final victory, to being engulfed in an existential crisis of its own making. And how, along the way, it fashioned an ugly new that this was the fault of the most vulnerable groups in society, rather than a power-hungry, venal ruling class.
Today, as the Atlantic alliance struggles to hold itself together, The Fall of the West exposes how a generation of Western elites bent on power and self-enrichment at any cost fatally overreached itself, and argues that, if we are to find the solutions to our age of crisis, we must first understand the real reasons for how the West lost it.
Almost everywhere we turn these days, there’s talk of a West in decline. Our jobs, our values, our past are all under attack, in the face of which we have become immersed in self-loathing, gone weak at the the West needs to be Made Great Again. We know where this toxic narrative comes the nationalist, nativist Right. And now it’s gone mainstream.
The thing is, the West is in decline, self-evidently so. But the truth is that it’s not migrants or Muslims or a woke mob which has brought the West to the edge of catastrophe. It’s good, old-fashioned hubris.
In this blistering new book, Owen Jones explores how, amid the triumphalist sugar rush that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West came to believe that its rule, its economic order, its moral values, would endure for ever – and how, over a quarter-century, this brittle self-mythologising narrative collapsed in on itself. From Afghanistan and Iraq, to the economic crash of 2008 and Gaza today, he takes us on a journey to show how the West went from scoring what it believed was its final victory, to being engulfed in an existential crisis of its own making. And how, along the way, it fashioned an ugly new that this was the fault of the most vulnerable groups in society, rather than a power-hungry, venal ruling class.
Today, as the Atlantic alliance struggles to hold itself together, The Fall of the West exposes how a generation of Western elites bent on power and self-enrichment at any cost fatally overreached itself, and argues that, if we are to find the solutions to our age of crisis, we must first understand the real reasons for how the West lost it.
462 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2026
About the author
Owen Jones
1,283 books13 followersLibrarian Note: There are several authors by this name with individual author profiles.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Last week I read One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, in advance of an event I was hosting with him for bookhaus. Following that I read this by Owen Jones in advance of a launch event I hosted with him last night. The two books dovetail well as they are showing different angles of the same phenomenon; the decline and fall of the West. Omar explained that as he was growing up in Egypt and Qatar the West stood for freedom, modernity, liberty, democracy, opportunity, human rights etc... This belief gradually dissolved after moving to Canada as a youth, entering into journalism, and observing the racism, class oppression, unfairness, exploitation and colonial thinking that exists in the Imperial core. But the final, irrevocable nail in the coffin was the West's outright support for the genocide that has taken place in Gaza at the hands of Israel.
This book is a less personal, more expansive historical account of the same themes. Jones travels to Germany, Iraq, the USA, Austria and England from Sheffield to the City of London, interviewing witnesses, experts and participants in the broad phenomenon that is causing the decline of the West. Neoliberalism has run out of justifications and been proven to be wrong beyond any shadow of a doubt, and yet our political class, media elite and financial overlords continue to push it. This is leading to a decline in our wages, our environment, our security, our infrastructure and built environment, our education, our healthcare etc... The war in Iraq, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the legacy of colonialism in Kenya and Iran, and the West's backing of Israel against all morality, public outcry and international law, has destroyed the remaining good will or authority that the West had in the world. It feels something like what it must have been like to live in the last days of the Soviet Union.
This book is a less personal, more expansive historical account of the same themes. Jones travels to Germany, Iraq, the USA, Austria and England from Sheffield to the City of London, interviewing witnesses, experts and participants in the broad phenomenon that is causing the decline of the West. Neoliberalism has run out of justifications and been proven to be wrong beyond any shadow of a doubt, and yet our political class, media elite and financial overlords continue to push it. This is leading to a decline in our wages, our environment, our security, our infrastructure and built environment, our education, our healthcare etc... The war in Iraq, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the legacy of colonialism in Kenya and Iran, and the West's backing of Israel against all morality, public outcry and international law, has destroyed the remaining good will or authority that the West had in the world. It feels something like what it must have been like to live in the last days of the Soviet Union.
October 10, 2026
Meh… not much analysis more a diatribe on the evils of the modern centrist political establishment
October 14, 2026
Required reading
A well-written and well-researched book about the current state of the world. The relative decline of the west economically has been presaged by its moral collapse. The Gaza genocide heralds the final collapse of the rules based order that was constructed by the west and destroyed by it. Owen Jones masterfully charts this painful historical epoch.
A well-written and well-researched book about the current state of the world. The relative decline of the west economically has been presaged by its moral collapse. The Gaza genocide heralds the final collapse of the rules based order that was constructed by the west and destroyed by it. Owen Jones masterfully charts this painful historical epoch.
October 16, 2026
Dead bore
I have got more from each of Owen's Guardian articles than I did from this book. It's a real disappointment.
I have got more from each of Owen's Guardian articles than I did from this book. It's a real disappointment.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews