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Empire of Democracy: The Remaking of the West Since the Cold War
The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day—from the Cold War to the 2008 financial crisis and wars in the Middle East—Empire of Democracy is “a superbly informed and riveting historical analysis of our contemporary era” (Charles S. Maier, Harvard University).Half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War and amidst a world economic crisis, the Western democracies were forced to undergo a profound transformation. Against what some saw as a full-scale “crisis of democracy”—with race riots, anti-Vietnam marches and a wave of worker discontent sowing crisis from one nation to the next—a new political-economic order was devised and the postwar social contract was torn up and written anew.In this epic narrative of the events that have shaped our own times, Simon Reid-Henry shows how liberal democracy, and western history with it, was profoundly reimagined when the postwar Golden Age ended. As the institutions of liberal rule were reinvented, a new generation of politicians Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, Kohl. The late twentieth century heyday they oversaw carried the Western democracies triumphantly to victory in the Cold War and into the economic boom of the 1990s. But equally it led them into the fiasco of Iraq, to the high drama of the financial crisis in 2007/8, and ultimately to the anti-liberal surge of our own times.The present crisis of liberalism is leading us toward as yet unscripted decades. The era we have all been living through is closing out, and democracy is turning on its axis once again. “Brilliantly, Reid-Henry calls for the salvation of democracy from the choices of its own leaders if it is to survive” (Samuel Moyn, Yale University).
872 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 27, 2019
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758 people want to read
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September 18, 2020
This is a long, historical overview of the dramatic changes undertaken in Western democratic societies from 1971 to 2017, largely in the name of what we generally call 'neoliberalism' (economic libertarianism/marketisation), and charts how those changes (negatively) affected the state of democracy in those countries. There is also some discussion of foreign policy trends in this era, although it is not always clear what the connection is between these two strands of the narrative are.
The starting point is 1971 when President Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard and ended the Bretton Woods system, which had underlain the relative stability of the 1945-71 period – this allowed the US and other governments a great deal more economic freedom (they could ‘print money’). This, allied to the OPEC oil shock, led to a much more unstable world economy and higher levels of inflation (often with higher unemployment), for which many influential rightist thinkers saw the best solution as deregulation, lower taxes and increasing marketisation of all elements of the economy. Since then, most Western governments have seen their prime duty, at least in their actions if not their rhetoric, as that of protecting the ‘economy’ (i.e. business interests). When you throw in the shocks of 911, the war on terror, the 2008 financial crash, and other world crises, and the pernicious effects of social media, then you have a great recipe for social instability and a loss of faith in politicians and the political system (democratic participation has plummeted, perhaps on the basis that the politicians have no real control any more). Fittingly, the book ends with the election of the uber-non politician, Donald Trump, who is authentic in his total lack of democratic beliefs [as the author notes, Hillary Clinton was accurate but insincere in her beliefs, but Trump is inaccurate but sincere in his statements].
This is all very well-told, and backed with extensive research in a myriad of disciplines, but much like Zuboff’s acclaimed book on Surveillance Capitalism, it contains 750pp of critique but then a weak ending, with no real plan for how we can, as a society, reclaim democracy and make it work for the ‘99%’ rather than just for the elites (by which I mean the real elites, not the ones who read the Guardian). The author suggests that democracy needs to remember that equality is a core part of the meaning of this term, which has been almost forgotten in the period covered here, and is likely to be exacerbated by the long-term effects of the corona virus, not to mention climate change.
The starting point is 1971 when President Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard and ended the Bretton Woods system, which had underlain the relative stability of the 1945-71 period – this allowed the US and other governments a great deal more economic freedom (they could ‘print money’). This, allied to the OPEC oil shock, led to a much more unstable world economy and higher levels of inflation (often with higher unemployment), for which many influential rightist thinkers saw the best solution as deregulation, lower taxes and increasing marketisation of all elements of the economy. Since then, most Western governments have seen their prime duty, at least in their actions if not their rhetoric, as that of protecting the ‘economy’ (i.e. business interests). When you throw in the shocks of 911, the war on terror, the 2008 financial crash, and other world crises, and the pernicious effects of social media, then you have a great recipe for social instability and a loss of faith in politicians and the political system (democratic participation has plummeted, perhaps on the basis that the politicians have no real control any more). Fittingly, the book ends with the election of the uber-non politician, Donald Trump, who is authentic in his total lack of democratic beliefs [as the author notes, Hillary Clinton was accurate but insincere in her beliefs, but Trump is inaccurate but sincere in his statements].
This is all very well-told, and backed with extensive research in a myriad of disciplines, but much like Zuboff’s acclaimed book on Surveillance Capitalism, it contains 750pp of critique but then a weak ending, with no real plan for how we can, as a society, reclaim democracy and make it work for the ‘99%’ rather than just for the elites (by which I mean the real elites, not the ones who read the Guardian). The author suggests that democracy needs to remember that equality is a core part of the meaning of this term, which has been almost forgotten in the period covered here, and is likely to be exacerbated by the long-term effects of the corona virus, not to mention climate change.
March 24, 2020
This book, although lengthy (754 pages), is superb in tracing and clarifying the disruptive changes in public policy experienced by the United States and much of Europe over the past 50 years.
The author’s thesis explores is that many nations, facing similar challenges in economics, society, and politics, made the choice to abandon their post-war commitments to full employment and economic benefits for the middle class in favor of the enticing prospect that full participation in the increasingly integrated world market would deliver ongoing growth to them all. The problem, one that they were very slow to recognize – and even more reluctant to admit – is that without regulation this form of economic growth has no relationship to fairness or equity.
Mr. Reid-Henry’s probing, ethics-based questions – the kind often absent from works on history and politics – reveal why and how so many key economic decisions thus came to be effectively removed from the citizens and allocated, instead, to the undemocratic workings of “the market.”
Here is his basic argument in a nutshell:
1) Over the past 50 years, elected leaders chose to redirect governmental policies away from continuing the post-war commitment to ensuring wide-spread prosperity for their people and toward supporting the operation of “free markets” — essentially embracing globalism, despite the fact that this has resulted in greater hardship, lost jobs, and devalued status for the broad working and middle classes. Instead of maintaining policy priorities geared towards enhancing the public sphere and preserving equity among citizens, leaders embraced instead the commitment to keeping inflation low and, thus, effectively put downward pressure on wage growth for the many.
2) Furthermore, they have done so by circumventing the democratically expressed wishes of the people by placing these decisions in the hands of supra-national mechanisms, such as are embodied in multiple trade agreements and in the operation of the European Union, effectively excluding “the people” — workers, business owners, and concerned citizens — from them. “Globalization itself is not the problem,” he argues; rather, “it is the removal from democratic oversight of the property-based system through which it is pursued that is the problem.”
3) While these decisions were made in the hope that by committing to the new demands of the globalized market-system they could best ensure that growth would continue, decision-makers failed to understand the consequences this growth might have if it remained outside national regulations leaving it, in effect, undirected. The consequences are now glaringly apparently: “growth” has occurred, and “wealth” has increased, but both to the detriment of a sizable portion of each nation’s populace by causing a massive transfer of wealth to a relatively few rich people at the top.
a. Accordingly, many governments – especially those of Great Britain and the US – increasingly chose to privatize services that had previously been understood as the responsibility of the government: such things as military contractors, the operation of prisons, and the management of such programs as Medicaid. As both a direct consequence – and an integral reason for this change – government (along with its services) at all levels contracted, diminishing the number of positions lower-income citizens used to achieve jobs offering decent wages and benefits, while ensuring that those who replaced them in the private sphere would have lower wages and severely diminished benefits (if any at all). The rise of the “gig economy” is but a logical consequence – and a furtherance – of this trend. And is the dismal ignoring of the nation’s worsening infrastructure.
b. The Republican Party, the principal architects of these policies, understands that their efforts to downsize government, diminish public services, and shift benefits to the wealthiest through successive tax cuts can be masked by skillfully playing upon the cultural and religious resentments of the working class. Democrats, on the other hand, who continue to fumble adequately addressing these resentments, have weakened their position over the years by effectively endorsing the Republican’s agenda about needing to reduce public (that is, non-military) spending over fears about further increasing the deficit.
4) Finally, for all that the rhetoric of various major parties in recent years regularly includes verbal obeisance to the “will of the people,” the truly remarkable thing is that both liberal and conservative parties have largely acquiesced in, and overseen, this process. In this important respect, both “neocons” and “neoliberals” have much in common. No wonder, then, that growing numbers of people are anxiously searching for new voices that promising to reassert control for the peoples’ benefit.
While some angry outbursts of popular discontent did occur in the latter decades of the 20th century, our current “perfect storm” of institutional rejection, contempt for “elites,” and a panicky turn to nationalist/populists is largely the result of two major events of the 21st century: the major global recession begun in 2008 and the almost coterminous eruption of millions of refugees fleeing both failing local economies and the disastrous wars in the Middle East and the Balkans, in which both the United States and NATO were major players.
During the years of the Great Recession, the formerly communist states of central and eastern Europe endured a double whammy: rapidly losing what little economic progress they had made since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in catching up with the more prosperous western regions while being among those most quickly effected by the swelling number of immigrants and refugees arriving from the Middle East and Africa.
Meanwhile, this recession also caused most European nations to make the fateful decision to tighten their belts to maintain fiscal discipline and avoid inflation rather than to spend to stimulate national growth.
The consequences were most severe for the poorer Western European nations of Italy and Greece which, not so incidentally, were the first landing points for the flood of refugees. As the European banks tightened the financial screws, it was the average citizen who experienced job losses, plummeting wages, and depleted pensions, even as their nation’s indebtedness grew.
Little wonder that far-right parties found fertile ground for their unchanging message of nationalism, racism, and blaming immigrants for their troubles. While all of this was occurring, those progressive parties that had once stood for greater social justice and economic fairness struggled to find meaningful solutions, still unable – or refusing – to recognize how “the markets” and the commitment to contain inflation were at the root of the problem.
As it became apparent that the mainstream parties would not — or could not — do anything to address popular anxieties, increasing numbers of citizens in many countries began to listen to and support the more extremist parties of the Right.
In the United States, where the politics of savage personal attacks and refusal to compromise that increasingly led to gridlock between the two parties had begun in the 1990s with the tactics of then-Speaker of the House New Gingrich, it was the Tea Party that emerged after Barrack Obama’s election to the presidency that expressed widespread popular disillusionment and anger.
While Obama had been elected on a wave of hope that he would somehow “change things,” he was, alas, unable to bring about those necessary transformations that many hoped for. This was so for a number of reasons, not least of which was the unforgivably rigid opposition of the Republican Party to his presidency from the outset. The resulting gridlock, and the increasingly bitter and personal rhetoric employed by his political and conservative media opponents, created the resentment and unrest that resulted in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, a non-mainstream, non-politician who skillfully played upon populist-themed fears.
While candidate Trump did identify some of the legitimate grievances of the mass of Americans, such as the unending wars in the Middle East and the flawed trade agreements of recent years which had contributed to the loss of American jobs and their subsequent outsourcing to overseas markets, his presidency has failed to more than superficially “resolve” any of them, despite the masking bluster of his unending tweets.
As Reid-Henry notes, our current dismal situation is rooted in the steady decline of public trust which has led to “the return of a form of national patriotism born of insecurity…. revealing [itself] in a fluid yet pervasive sense of social disaggregation.” It is not only trust that is now lacking “but also a belief, at times with good reason, in the underlying sense of justice and fairness that democracies require to nourish that trust.”
I share his belief that our central problem is: how do we once again allow “the people” to have a hand in shaping the economic decisions that affect us all?
For a starter, we desperately need more democracy, and not less. We must dismiss the idea that “the economy” and its functioning are givens, that is, that they function the way they do because this is how capitalism works.
The truth, as Reid-Henry repeatedly demonstrates, is that while national economies are subject to the give and pull of international policies and treaties, they function under rules established by human beings. The central problem is that while the post-war governments of the West pursued policies intended to assist widespread employment — policies endorsed repeatedly by their citizens through elections — they have long since abandoned the setting and pursuit of national goals by surrendering the matter of goals and policies to non-elected and non-representative corporations, trade negotiators, and courts set up through treaties. The effect has been to allow “globalization” to run amuck, dictated almost entirely by a relentless drive for goods at the cheapest price which has ensured a race to the bottom in labor markets, hurting not only workers in the so-called First World but also those in poorer countries.
With policies designed to weaken unions in both the public and private sphere, with relentless efforts to deprive governments at all levels with the fiscal resources needed to adequately support and defend the public sphere, and with aid to corporations enjoying higher support among our elected leadership than aid to citizens — unless, of course, they are the worthy ones — we have allowed the market and its cheerleaders to weaken our governing institutions while accelerating wealth and income inequality.
What we once prized and practiced — what Reid-Henry identified as “social democracy’s core ethic of political compromise in the name of collective justice” must be recaptured if both a functional republic — and more just levels of income equality — are to be possible.
The author’s thesis explores is that many nations, facing similar challenges in economics, society, and politics, made the choice to abandon their post-war commitments to full employment and economic benefits for the middle class in favor of the enticing prospect that full participation in the increasingly integrated world market would deliver ongoing growth to them all. The problem, one that they were very slow to recognize – and even more reluctant to admit – is that without regulation this form of economic growth has no relationship to fairness or equity.
Mr. Reid-Henry’s probing, ethics-based questions – the kind often absent from works on history and politics – reveal why and how so many key economic decisions thus came to be effectively removed from the citizens and allocated, instead, to the undemocratic workings of “the market.”
Here is his basic argument in a nutshell:
1) Over the past 50 years, elected leaders chose to redirect governmental policies away from continuing the post-war commitment to ensuring wide-spread prosperity for their people and toward supporting the operation of “free markets” — essentially embracing globalism, despite the fact that this has resulted in greater hardship, lost jobs, and devalued status for the broad working and middle classes. Instead of maintaining policy priorities geared towards enhancing the public sphere and preserving equity among citizens, leaders embraced instead the commitment to keeping inflation low and, thus, effectively put downward pressure on wage growth for the many.
2) Furthermore, they have done so by circumventing the democratically expressed wishes of the people by placing these decisions in the hands of supra-national mechanisms, such as are embodied in multiple trade agreements and in the operation of the European Union, effectively excluding “the people” — workers, business owners, and concerned citizens — from them. “Globalization itself is not the problem,” he argues; rather, “it is the removal from democratic oversight of the property-based system through which it is pursued that is the problem.”
3) While these decisions were made in the hope that by committing to the new demands of the globalized market-system they could best ensure that growth would continue, decision-makers failed to understand the consequences this growth might have if it remained outside national regulations leaving it, in effect, undirected. The consequences are now glaringly apparently: “growth” has occurred, and “wealth” has increased, but both to the detriment of a sizable portion of each nation’s populace by causing a massive transfer of wealth to a relatively few rich people at the top.
a. Accordingly, many governments – especially those of Great Britain and the US – increasingly chose to privatize services that had previously been understood as the responsibility of the government: such things as military contractors, the operation of prisons, and the management of such programs as Medicaid. As both a direct consequence – and an integral reason for this change – government (along with its services) at all levels contracted, diminishing the number of positions lower-income citizens used to achieve jobs offering decent wages and benefits, while ensuring that those who replaced them in the private sphere would have lower wages and severely diminished benefits (if any at all). The rise of the “gig economy” is but a logical consequence – and a furtherance – of this trend. And is the dismal ignoring of the nation’s worsening infrastructure.
b. The Republican Party, the principal architects of these policies, understands that their efforts to downsize government, diminish public services, and shift benefits to the wealthiest through successive tax cuts can be masked by skillfully playing upon the cultural and religious resentments of the working class. Democrats, on the other hand, who continue to fumble adequately addressing these resentments, have weakened their position over the years by effectively endorsing the Republican’s agenda about needing to reduce public (that is, non-military) spending over fears about further increasing the deficit.
4) Finally, for all that the rhetoric of various major parties in recent years regularly includes verbal obeisance to the “will of the people,” the truly remarkable thing is that both liberal and conservative parties have largely acquiesced in, and overseen, this process. In this important respect, both “neocons” and “neoliberals” have much in common. No wonder, then, that growing numbers of people are anxiously searching for new voices that promising to reassert control for the peoples’ benefit.
While some angry outbursts of popular discontent did occur in the latter decades of the 20th century, our current “perfect storm” of institutional rejection, contempt for “elites,” and a panicky turn to nationalist/populists is largely the result of two major events of the 21st century: the major global recession begun in 2008 and the almost coterminous eruption of millions of refugees fleeing both failing local economies and the disastrous wars in the Middle East and the Balkans, in which both the United States and NATO were major players.
During the years of the Great Recession, the formerly communist states of central and eastern Europe endured a double whammy: rapidly losing what little economic progress they had made since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in catching up with the more prosperous western regions while being among those most quickly effected by the swelling number of immigrants and refugees arriving from the Middle East and Africa.
Meanwhile, this recession also caused most European nations to make the fateful decision to tighten their belts to maintain fiscal discipline and avoid inflation rather than to spend to stimulate national growth.
The consequences were most severe for the poorer Western European nations of Italy and Greece which, not so incidentally, were the first landing points for the flood of refugees. As the European banks tightened the financial screws, it was the average citizen who experienced job losses, plummeting wages, and depleted pensions, even as their nation’s indebtedness grew.
Little wonder that far-right parties found fertile ground for their unchanging message of nationalism, racism, and blaming immigrants for their troubles. While all of this was occurring, those progressive parties that had once stood for greater social justice and economic fairness struggled to find meaningful solutions, still unable – or refusing – to recognize how “the markets” and the commitment to contain inflation were at the root of the problem.
As it became apparent that the mainstream parties would not — or could not — do anything to address popular anxieties, increasing numbers of citizens in many countries began to listen to and support the more extremist parties of the Right.
In the United States, where the politics of savage personal attacks and refusal to compromise that increasingly led to gridlock between the two parties had begun in the 1990s with the tactics of then-Speaker of the House New Gingrich, it was the Tea Party that emerged after Barrack Obama’s election to the presidency that expressed widespread popular disillusionment and anger.
While Obama had been elected on a wave of hope that he would somehow “change things,” he was, alas, unable to bring about those necessary transformations that many hoped for. This was so for a number of reasons, not least of which was the unforgivably rigid opposition of the Republican Party to his presidency from the outset. The resulting gridlock, and the increasingly bitter and personal rhetoric employed by his political and conservative media opponents, created the resentment and unrest that resulted in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, a non-mainstream, non-politician who skillfully played upon populist-themed fears.
While candidate Trump did identify some of the legitimate grievances of the mass of Americans, such as the unending wars in the Middle East and the flawed trade agreements of recent years which had contributed to the loss of American jobs and their subsequent outsourcing to overseas markets, his presidency has failed to more than superficially “resolve” any of them, despite the masking bluster of his unending tweets.
As Reid-Henry notes, our current dismal situation is rooted in the steady decline of public trust which has led to “the return of a form of national patriotism born of insecurity…. revealing [itself] in a fluid yet pervasive sense of social disaggregation.” It is not only trust that is now lacking “but also a belief, at times with good reason, in the underlying sense of justice and fairness that democracies require to nourish that trust.”
I share his belief that our central problem is: how do we once again allow “the people” to have a hand in shaping the economic decisions that affect us all?
For a starter, we desperately need more democracy, and not less. We must dismiss the idea that “the economy” and its functioning are givens, that is, that they function the way they do because this is how capitalism works.
The truth, as Reid-Henry repeatedly demonstrates, is that while national economies are subject to the give and pull of international policies and treaties, they function under rules established by human beings. The central problem is that while the post-war governments of the West pursued policies intended to assist widespread employment — policies endorsed repeatedly by their citizens through elections — they have long since abandoned the setting and pursuit of national goals by surrendering the matter of goals and policies to non-elected and non-representative corporations, trade negotiators, and courts set up through treaties. The effect has been to allow “globalization” to run amuck, dictated almost entirely by a relentless drive for goods at the cheapest price which has ensured a race to the bottom in labor markets, hurting not only workers in the so-called First World but also those in poorer countries.
With policies designed to weaken unions in both the public and private sphere, with relentless efforts to deprive governments at all levels with the fiscal resources needed to adequately support and defend the public sphere, and with aid to corporations enjoying higher support among our elected leadership than aid to citizens — unless, of course, they are the worthy ones — we have allowed the market and its cheerleaders to weaken our governing institutions while accelerating wealth and income inequality.
What we once prized and practiced — what Reid-Henry identified as “social democracy’s core ethic of political compromise in the name of collective justice” must be recaptured if both a functional republic — and more just levels of income equality — are to be possible.
April 10, 2022
I didn’t enjoy this mammoth book as much as I had hoped. I had hoped for an easier to read analysis of the political systems of the democratic world, but for me this was a bit too dense and veered into economics too much for me to enjoy.
I’m sure I’m simply not the target audience for this book, but for 99p I certainly did learn a thing or two.
I’m sure I’m simply not the target audience for this book, but for 99p I certainly did learn a thing or two.
March 7, 2025
4.5 Very long!! Lots of economics, but still so very interesting … a little dense in some parts, but overall pretty lucid!
September 26, 2019
I received a free copy for an honest review from Netgalley.
For anyone interested in where we have come, and what is currently happening in governance, this is a great place to start. This isn’t just a political book- it covers how the current form government works (or failed us) in the economy, in respects to our allies and enemies, and internally. This give insight to not only just how the whole spiderweb is strung, but how we each dance along it, trying to not get bitten. This covers not just our government- but how other systems are behaving, and what the pitfalls we are seeing are.
This is a thoughtful and thought provoking book that is not just educating. But, this book was written on a precipice- where do we go from here? How will we middle through and deal with these issues? These are questions asked at the end, and it is for us, collectively, to move forward and find out.
For anyone interested in where we have come, and what is currently happening in governance, this is a great place to start. This isn’t just a political book- it covers how the current form government works (or failed us) in the economy, in respects to our allies and enemies, and internally. This give insight to not only just how the whole spiderweb is strung, but how we each dance along it, trying to not get bitten. This covers not just our government- but how other systems are behaving, and what the pitfalls we are seeing are.
This is a thoughtful and thought provoking book that is not just educating. But, this book was written on a precipice- where do we go from here? How will we middle through and deal with these issues? These are questions asked at the end, and it is for us, collectively, to move forward and find out.
February 19, 2023
A mixture of history and political science which traces Western democracy from the end of Bretton Woods in 1971 to the twin populist backlashes of 2016. At times a little dense and hard to follow, but overall a thought provoking linking together of events and themes which otherwise might be viewed in isolation.
September 26, 2021
A very dense book with lots of ideas and some conclusions that I didn't agree with.
September 20, 2021
This has been the book I've been trying to make everyone read this year. It is a history of almost 50 years of world history in three parts -- Up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, up to 9/11, and thereafter. Impossible for all his ideas to be right, but I'm sure the vast majority are pretty close, and all of them are interesting an valuable. The story of the western world and much of the rest of the world during most of my lifetime.
April 2, 2023
Interesting read
June 18, 2020
Empire of Democracy
The introductions of the chapters, didn’t provide clarity of the chapter’s main objective.
I have an understanding of the literary style in which the author attempted, but from experience and pass education lessons about political science books, this book would have failed crediting review.
From how this book was presented, this book disregarded all the quality factors that ensures the reader has the ability to generate clear political thought of the context in which the book is revolved around. In this political Science Book, the context is revolved around “How Democracy is an Empire”.
Quality written Political Science Novels are written when the objective of the chapter is directly stated at the beginning of the chapter.
I learned that political science books are definitely capable of being contextually vital, when the objective is made known at the beginning of the chapter.
The quality of the objective is dependent on its context, which the chapter’s context ensures the main objective of the chapter is supported with relevant political events. Securing a reliable political thought.
I’m not a big fan of story based political science books. I believe this style of writing, presents superfluous information, and doesn’t provide clarity on how to resolve the current illegal government’s systems of legal operations.
I prefer fact based political science books. Fact based entailing that the author secures their writing in the context rationalizing perspective.
I believe to have a quality political science book, the author’s political thought needs to be known, and stated clearly at the beginning of every political explanation (elongated text).
The factors in which the political thought will discuss in political clarity, is what secures (again stating), the ability for a person to develop a securing and reliable source of political thought. This reliable source, secures the reader, of ensuring that political thought is standard in the world of politics. Political conversations. Government.
An author is not capable of securing their context of their political thought when the context reflects: 1) Rambling, 2) contradicting facts, 3) nonsupporting facts.
This book is very lengthly.
I believe the objective of the author was not a quality objective. The appearance of the author’s objective, subjectively perceiving of course, was in pursuit of just accomplishing a a lengthly publication.
Reason for such statement is because no political science book needs this much of length.
Nonetheless… when I do encounter and read a lengthy political science book, I automatically am able to identify context factors that indicate that the objective of the author is not quality, but absolute pure quantity.
In addition to my thought, I subjectively account that having such futile work negates the whole purpose of a book - informative.
In Concluding statement, the objective in which the author accomplished (lengthly book) just solidified and verified that the author is more illiterate all because no political thought needs this much rambling. An explanation this long, theoretically proofs the author has no idea of what the objective of his literary work is, and is purely just regurgitating useless context.
This book is NOT AT ALL INFORMATIVE.
WAS PAINFUL TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, BUT I AM NOT GOING TO LET A BAD BOOK DEFEAT ME.
The introductions of the chapters, didn’t provide clarity of the chapter’s main objective.
I have an understanding of the literary style in which the author attempted, but from experience and pass education lessons about political science books, this book would have failed crediting review.
From how this book was presented, this book disregarded all the quality factors that ensures the reader has the ability to generate clear political thought of the context in which the book is revolved around. In this political Science Book, the context is revolved around “How Democracy is an Empire”.
Quality written Political Science Novels are written when the objective of the chapter is directly stated at the beginning of the chapter.
I learned that political science books are definitely capable of being contextually vital, when the objective is made known at the beginning of the chapter.
The quality of the objective is dependent on its context, which the chapter’s context ensures the main objective of the chapter is supported with relevant political events. Securing a reliable political thought.
I’m not a big fan of story based political science books. I believe this style of writing, presents superfluous information, and doesn’t provide clarity on how to resolve the current illegal government’s systems of legal operations.
I prefer fact based political science books. Fact based entailing that the author secures their writing in the context rationalizing perspective.
I believe to have a quality political science book, the author’s political thought needs to be known, and stated clearly at the beginning of every political explanation (elongated text).
The factors in which the political thought will discuss in political clarity, is what secures (again stating), the ability for a person to develop a securing and reliable source of political thought. This reliable source, secures the reader, of ensuring that political thought is standard in the world of politics. Political conversations. Government.
An author is not capable of securing their context of their political thought when the context reflects: 1) Rambling, 2) contradicting facts, 3) nonsupporting facts.
This book is very lengthly.
I believe the objective of the author was not a quality objective. The appearance of the author’s objective, subjectively perceiving of course, was in pursuit of just accomplishing a a lengthly publication.
Reason for such statement is because no political science book needs this much of length.
Nonetheless… when I do encounter and read a lengthy political science book, I automatically am able to identify context factors that indicate that the objective of the author is not quality, but absolute pure quantity.
In addition to my thought, I subjectively account that having such futile work negates the whole purpose of a book - informative.
In Concluding statement, the objective in which the author accomplished (lengthly book) just solidified and verified that the author is more illiterate all because no political thought needs this much rambling. An explanation this long, theoretically proofs the author has no idea of what the objective of his literary work is, and is purely just regurgitating useless context.
This book is NOT AT ALL INFORMATIVE.
WAS PAINFUL TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, BUT I AM NOT GOING TO LET A BAD BOOK DEFEAT ME.
Read
September 26, 2021Yeay, with support from friends and family I made it through this very dense and detailed book, a political and economic history of the last 50 years, mostly focused on the US and Europe. Some patterns are the incremental (or not so incremental) dismantling of government social support systems, and the trend toward nationalism and authoritarianism wherever it finds an opening. We have a republic, if we can keep it.
Especially important for American readers is to learn how great the impact and disruption was in Europe of the end of the Cold War, the “reforms” of Thatcher, the Great Recession. This book clarified it in ways our media didn’t.
The writer has a tendency to assume the reader knows more than I actually do. I definitely had to read with Internet close at hand.
Especially important for American readers is to learn how great the impact and disruption was in Europe of the end of the Cold War, the “reforms” of Thatcher, the Great Recession. This book clarified it in ways our media didn’t.
The writer has a tendency to assume the reader knows more than I actually do. I definitely had to read with Internet close at hand.
November 14, 2019
This is current reading, it's informative, exhaustive & exhausting! Not an easy read but I can't help thinking it succeeds in its purpose of telling us how we got to where we are. He doesn't say so in so many words, but what he seems to be pointing out - my interpretation anyway - is that worldwide, governments have just become agents for corporations & financial interests. It covers the most recent 50 years, damn near up until today & he comes off as being pretty balanced & objective. On the minus side, his prose is pretty turgid & now & then you'll find a sentence containing something ridiculous but as far as I can see, it's always something obvious & trivial which can easily be forgiven.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/book...
https://www.simonandschuster.com/book...
June 15, 2022
I was looking forward to this book because I wanted to understand the history of democracy over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, after reading this book I am none the wiser. It is poorly written. Many statements are made without explanation let alone evidence to back them up. There is some good information and ideas in this book but it's not worth persevering with.
This book is not for the general reader who is curious about the history of democracy. It appears to be written by an academic for the benefit of other academics.
This book is not for the general reader who is curious about the history of democracy. It appears to be written by an academic for the benefit of other academics.
November 12, 2019
This book is the best overview I’ve yet found of how democracy was intentionally subverted in favour of free-market capitalism over the past forty years. Although I’m familiar with the basics of this story, Reid-Henry’s book is astonishing in its thoroughness, weaving in all kinds of events and crises that appear to be unrelated, but in fact were very much a part of the story, either resulting directly from this economic coup or being used by the powers-that-be to keep the rest of us convinced of its inevitability (and sometimes both).
April 3, 2020
An excellent book, although I found the coverage got better for the later years. I would recommend The series by Dominic Sandbrook to give a better feel for the 1970s, but from the 1980s onward this book is first class. The linkage of various major events over the long term such as the erosion of the US tax base, wars in the Middle East and the Financial Crash of 2008 is both interesting and compelling.
August 12, 2021
As a Cold War aficionado, this book interested me to explore further on the history line. What a fantastic narrative of our modern timeline. Changed drastically the way I perceived what I thought were ideal public policies. Before I read this, I definitely had a stronger liberal inclination. Now, I see every governmental choice with a critical eye. We are not on the right track towards social and economical justice. Highly recommended!
July 8, 2023
The last 50 years have seen a change in the Western form of Democracy. From one that was focused on Society and the Public services & spaces, into one focused on the Individual and to individual wealth in particular (or, the lack of personal wealth). SRH gives a detailed account of these changes across nations, politics and economics, to explain how we reached our current condition (in 2018). You may not agree with all the conclussions, but the historical analysis is fascinating.
July 28, 2024
Independientemente de sí coincides o no con todo lo que dice el autor, es el único libro que he encontrado que pretende presentar una explicación total y aritculada (aunque, por eso, superficial) de como llegamos a la situación en la que nos encontramos. Me parece que logra hacerlo de manera excelente!
April 11, 2021
The books starts from the 1970s. And for someone born then its like a series of flashbacks from the news channels with a core thread and thesis weaved through someone with a great sense of historical forces. Mildly impermeable in places which stops it being five stars. Highly recommended.
November 15, 2019
Really enjoyed the scope of this book. I'm not really qualified to asses the economics of the book. But plenty of stimulating political and sociological insight.
June 1, 2021
Dense AF book that explains how the West has hollowed out its democracy in exchange for unfettered capitalism and globalism.
July 26, 2025
too verbose but if you can commit reading it you will learn how democracy starts rising and declining in the west
February 2, 2020
This weighty tome made serious promises 50 critical years that reinvented the West, but in the spew of facts (most seemingly accurate), the critical transformation that brought us our Modernity is obscured rather than enlightened, but at least the facts that you know and lived through will be deformed to fit the narrative.
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