Age of Anger: A History of the Present

by Pankaj Mishra Narrated by Derek Perkins

Overview

How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world-from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century before leading us to the present.



As the world became modern, those who were unable to enjoy its promises of freedom, stability, and prosperity were increasingly susceptible to demagogues. It was from among the ranks of the disaffected 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.



Today, just as then, the embrace of mass politics and technology and the pursuit of wealth and individualism have cast many more billions adrift, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity-with the same terrible results.



Making startling connections and comparisons, Age of Anger is a book of immense urgency and profound argument. It is a history of our present predicament unlike any other.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Franklin Foer

…important, erudite…[Mishra] has a highly developed understanding of the psychic and emotional forces propelling illiberalism's spread across the globe, a movement united by a sense of disappointment, bewilderment and envy—the spiritual condition that Nietzsche diagnosed as ressentiment…Liberalism has no choice but to sincerely wrestle with its discontents, to become reacquainted with its moral blind spots and political weaknesses. Technocracy—which defines so much of the modern liberal spirit—doesn't have a natural grasp of psychology and emotion. But if it hopes to stave off the dark forces, it needs to grow adept at understanding the less tangible roots of anger, the human experience uncaptured by data, the resentments that understandably fester. A decent liberalism would read sharp critics like Mishra and learn.

From the Publisher

Mishra may well be the ideal writer to diagnose our current moment . . . In Age of Anger, Mishra has produced an urgent analysis of a moment in which the forgotten and dispossessed are rising up to challenge everything we thought we knew about the state of the world.” —Sebastian Strangio, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Important, erudite . . . Mishra dwells in the realm of ideas and emotions, which get short shrift in most accounts of global politics. So it's bracing and illuminating for him to focus on feelings . . . A decent liberalism would read sharp critics like Mishra and learn.” —Franklin Foer, The New York Times Book Review

"Columnist and historian Pankaj Mishra has named a moment and an era: His brilliant new book Age of Anger: A History of the Present looks at the rising tide of radical nationalism, racism, intolerance, misogyny, xenophobia, and fascism that's sweeping away calmer and more measured opposition all over the world, and he attempts to understand the phenomena before it engulfs everybody on the planet. . . Fiercely literate and eloquent.” —Steve Donoghue, The Christian Science Monitor

“In its literacy and literariness, [Age of Anger] has the feel of Edmund Wilson’s extraordinary dramas of modern ideas—books like To the Finland Station—but with a different endpoint and a more global canvas. Mishra reads like a brilliant autodidact, putting to shame the many students who dutifully did the reading for their classes but missed the incandescent fire and penetrating insight in canonical texts.” —Samuel Moyn, The New Republic

“In probing for the wellspring of today’s anger [Pankaj Mishra] hits on something real. He traces our current mood back to the French Enlightenment of the 18th century . . . Along with quotations from Voltaire, Rousseau, and other familiar figures of Western Civ, Age of Anger includes observations from Iranian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and other nations’ scholars; their perspectives complement Mishra’s deep understanding of global tensions.” —Peter Coy, Bloomberg Businessweek

“Erudite …[In] Age of Anger: A History of the Present, which was conceived before Brexit and Trump, the Indian nonfiction writer and novelist Pankaj Mishra argues that our current rage has deep historical roots.” —Bryan Walsh, Time

“Richly learned and usefully subversive.” —John Gray, Literary Review

“A bowel-churning kick in the guts . . . [Pankaj Mishra's] vision is unusually broad, accommodating and resistant to categorisation. It is the kind of vision the world needs right now . . . Age of Anger is vitally germane to the global expressions of discontent that we are now witnessing” —Christopher de Bellaigue, Financial Times

“[An] ambitious world history of anti-progressive backlash.” —New York

“A disturbing but imperatively urgent analysis.” — Bryce Christensen, Booklist (starred review)

“A probing, well-informed investigation of global unrest calling for ‘truly transformative thinking’ about humanity's future.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“With a deep knowledge of both Western and non-Western history, and like no other before him, Pankaj Mishra comes to grips with the malaise at the heart of these dangerous times. This is the most astonishing, convincing, and disturbing book I’ve read in years.” —Joe Sacco

“In this urgent, profound and extraordinarily timely study, Pankaj Mishra follows the likes of Isaiah Berlin, John Gray and Mark Lilla by delving into the past in order to throw light on our contemporary predicament, when the neglected and dispossessed of the world have suddenly risen up in Nietzschean ressentiment to transform the world we thought we knew.” —John Banville

"In Age of Anger: A History of the Present, Pankaj Mishra offers a panoramic survey of the populist wind roiling the world and a genealogy of the ressentiment propelling it. Lucid, incisive and provocative, the book may be the most ambitious effort yet to diagnose our social condition. With erudition and insight, it explains why movements from below are entrusting their future to paternalistic demagogues in the expectation of rewards from above." —Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The National

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

In this urgent, profound and extraordinarily timely study, Pankaj Mishra follows the likes of Isaiah Berlin, John Gray and Mark Lilla by delving into the past in order to throw light on our contemporary predicament, when the neglected and dispossessed of the world have suddenly risen up in Nietzschean ressentiment to transform the world we thought we knew. —John Banville

MARCH 2017 - AudioFile

If you need reminding that recent global events, the rise of nationalism and demagogues, and the rejection of the liberal world order pose a threat to freedom, then this audiobook is for you. Narrator Derek Perkins’s deep voice and English accent capture the audiobook’s pessimistic tone. The author compares the events of our time with mostly catastrophic twentieth-century events and concludes that we are susceptible to the same forces that led to the breakdown of the world order at that time. Perkins’s voice is reminiscent of WWII documentary narrators of the BBC, full of ominous portents but somehow vaguely reassuring that truth win out in the end. His pacing and diction are exemplary, but, again, this is not an audiobook for those looking for hope. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2016-12-25
How the failures of capitalism have led to "fear, confusion, loneliness and loss"—and global anger.In this ambitious, deeply researched analysis, social critic and novelist Mishra (From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, 2012, etc.) makes a persuasive argument that industrialism and capitalism have spawned virulent expressions of anger. He sees current upheaval—which fuels the Islamic State group and led to Brexit and Donald Trump's political success—stemming from the same source "as myriad Romantic revolts and rebellions of early nineteenth-century Europe"—i.e., "the mismatch between personal expectations, heightened by a traumatic break with the past, and the cruelly unresponsive reality of slow change." Individual freedom can feel terrifying, leading to a desire for an authoritative leader and, as Tocqueville put it, an "insatiable need for action, violent emotions, vicissitudes, and dangers." Mishra argues against taking an "us-them" view of the world as a contest between Western rationalism and "Islamofascism" but instead blames the current malaise on the West's insistence on the superiority of Enlightenment philosophy and failure to deliver on its promise of progress. As the author writes, a "promised universal civilization—one harmonized by a combination of universal suffrage, broad educational opportunities, steady economic growth, and private initiative and personal advancement—has not materialized." Most people, he believes, live fearfully in a world that they see they cannot control; they feel under siege by grisly horrors perpetrated by enemies, by the present and future effects of climate change, and by "arrogant and deceptive elites" who make them feel humiliated. Mishra bases his sage analysis on the "eclectic ideas" of European social theorists, including Dostoyevsky, Arendt, Heine, Marx, and scores of others. He especially highlights the contrast between Voltaire, "an unequivocal top-down modernizer," and Rousseau, who "tried to outline a social order where morals, virtue and human character rather than commerce and money were central to politics." A probing, well-informed investigation of global unrest calling for "truly transformative thinking" about humanity's future.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171240509
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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