Morbid Symptoms: An Anatomy of a World in Crisis

by Donald Sassoon

A health check on our corrupt and broken political system by one of our finest historians

The deadly coronavirus spread across societies already riddled with political ills: rampant xenophobia and corruption, privatisation run amok, Brexiteer vainglory of “a global Britain,” a Euroland dominated by self-proclaimed nasty parties, and in America, the unspeakable Trump. As the acclaimed historian Donald Sassoon observes in this blistering polemic, there were morbid symptoms galore.

Sassoon paints an unforgettable picture of our galloping descent into political barbarism, mixing blunt exposé and classical references with an astonishing array of data. Why does the United States proportionately have more civilians owning guns than Yemen, where there is a war on? Why did the UK enter the pandemic with fewer doctors than any EU country except Poland and Romania?

In Morbid Symptoms he refuses to abandon what Antonio Gramsci termed the optimism of the will, instead recalling a line from Machiavelli’s Istorie fiorentine: “do not impute past disorders to the nature of the men, but to the times, which, being changed, give reasonable ground to hope that, with better government, our city will have better fortune in the future.”

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

319 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 2, 2021

About the author

Donald Sassoon is Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History at Queen Mary, University of London.

Reviews

[Joshua Line · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduction is great but the rest is just a blow by blow traditional leftist summary of current political events and is unnecessary for all but those who want tidbits of trivia to share at dinner parties with fellow guardian readers.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cavalcata mesta ma non disperata nel panorama geopolitico attuale. La descrizione arguta dello stato comatoso degli ideali di progresso sociale e il roboante e arrogante successo, quasi a ogni latitudine, delle forze oscurantiste, reazionarie e nazionaliste. Se sara' un passaggio patologico, transitorio o meno lo dira' solo la Storia. L'autore cerca di delineare una qualche via di uscita e di individuare le cause del malessere corrente.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reads like a series of informed but nonetheless ultimately superficial Facebook posts written by one of your older and wise relatives who is just "really fed up" with things that everyone else has been talking about for years. Throw in some Gramsci and some sociological depth, and the laudable urge to peak beyond the usual spaces and you have a good book - but one that I frankly found a chore to read, whatever its virtues.

[Roland Glotzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be interesting to read as it provides an excellent analysis of the current geopolitical environment and its trends such as the rise of xenophobia, the decline of welfare and the collapse of major political parties. The progressive decline of the US hegemony as well as the challenges of coming up with a European identity were interesting to read about as well as the UK political environment that led to Brexit. All of this written with a good dose of humour. While it is difficult to write about recent events entirely objectively, Donald Sassoon has such a strong leftist bias that it unfortunately hurts the credibility of his writing. He criticises with valid facts and arguments the presidencies of Donald Trump and Barrack Obama, the governments of David Cameron and Tony Blair and of course Boris Johnson. However he is extremely forgiving when it comes to Vladimir Putin. He mentions that Putin claims he would chase terrorists wherever they are but in the same paragraph states that Alexei Navalny (his main opponent )was expelled from a liberal party because of its xenophobia while not mentioning the various crimes committed in Russia under the leadership of Putin. The author also quotes a Pew survey of various countries regarding their dissatisfaction with democracy which shows people more unhappy in France, UK and US than in Russia (where of course respondents of the survey may be worried to end up in jail if criticising the government). The attempted assassination of Skripal is described as alleged assassination (while the culprits were clearly identified as members of the FSB, the Russian secret service) and the interference in various elections such as the US not considered credible or meaningful. This made me give 4 stars to this book which with a bit more objectivity would have deserved 5 stars.

[Matt Fodor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sassoon is a prominent historian who tends to write big tomes like One Hundred Years of Socialism. This is a shorter work which Sassoon describes as a "polemic." Still it covers a lot of ground and really captures the current malaise in the Western democracies better than anything I've read of late. It covers everything from the xenophobic turn to the rolling back of the welfare state and (especially strong) chapter on the decline of social democracy and established political parties. Sassoon also has a great sense of humor which pops in from time to time.

[mohave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uno dei tanti libri di "storia" usciti negli ultimi anni pieni di dati falsi a sostegno di opinioni politiche personali. È una malattia endemica: gli accademci al giorno d'oggi fanno a gara a chi nega meglio i problemi della contemporaneità. Sono distanti dai problemi percepiti dalla maggior parte delle persone. Questo in particolare cita gramsci e marx ma poi difende la democrazia liberale e lo status quo.

[Thomas Kingston · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is hard book to review because on the one hand it is well written, tackling a crucial and concerning development in modern politics but at the same time it is incredibly depressing - bombarding the reader with evidence through facts and figures of how bad things are/were. And then doesn't offer any sort of solution...

I'm aware that it is framed as a diagnosis and not a cure but at the same time many people reading this - published as it is by a leftist publisher - are likely to be well aware of the issues and whilst the author does introduce plenty of new information, nearly all of it makes the reader feel like things are worse than we previously thought.

[Vladimir · Rating 3 out of 5]

En este libro, Donald Sassoon recorre de forma ágil y bien documentada los síntomas de este tiempo de crisis: el aumento de la xenofobia, el desmontaje del Estado del bienestar, la crisis de los partidos políticos tradicionales y las dudas de Europa y Estados Unidos acerca de su papel en el mundo.

La reseña completa, aquí: https://chs.hypotheses.org/710.

[Matias Andrade · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring, underwhelming. Doesn't live up to the title.