Audiobook12 hours
Age of Anger: A History of the Present
Written by Pankaj Mishra
Narrated by Derek Perkins
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
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.
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.
Author
Pankaj Mishra
Pankaj Mishra is the author of From the Ruins of Empire, Age of Anger, and several other books. He is a columnist at Bloomberg View and writes regularly for The Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New Yorker. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London.
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Reviews for Age of Anger
Rating: 3.800000035384615 out of 5 stars
4/5
65 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Unironically criticizes other works of scholarship by stating that previous authors made overly broad conclusions about the world based on a few years of events, while then going on to make overly broad conclusions about the world based on the last few year of events.
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I’m not as enamoured with Nietzsche as Mishra but , that premise aside, it’s wonderfully written.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5There is an important and vital thesis - or, premise - in this book. In my view, however, Pankaj Mishra lost the plot about 10% of the way through the book. There are a bewildering number of references to various Europeans like d'Annunzio and Rousseau and.....However, while they and their disciples may have had an influence on countries as far away as India, he does not examine the social and political changes taking place in these countries. It would have been helpful if he had contrasted India (where the changes are taking place now) with one or two other countries. He could have, alternatively, compared our time with the situation in the 1800s and the early 1900s.Instead, he dips in and out of references to many characters, books, writings and, in the end, the book is like a confused ball of wool that he has asked the reader, unkindly, to unwind.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mishra suggests that today’s troubles are the result of the unresolved clash between the Enlightenment tradition and the mass of the citizenry, who are generally less interested in change and rationality and feel condescended to by the educated elites. Modernism is full of violence; ISIS is not an Islamic entity but rather a backlash entity similar to many others provoked by Enlightenment ideals implemented in a context of economic inequality. He has an extended riff on the coherence of Timothy McVeigh’s ideology that helps illustrate why US conservatives are so happy to have Russian conservatives on their side.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Now I understand why those right wing idiots vote the way they do. It has to do with the development of man as a independent person, and his desire for unlimited freedom. Other than that insight, the book took forever to read,and it is still worth five stars. Mishra is amazingly well-read, and he dumps a lot of thoughts. Rousseau may be the bad boy of the Romantic era, but Voltaire is pretty good and the efforts of Bakunin and Nietsche pay off. He writes about ISIS and the other idiots who object to civilization. His big take is that Napoleon was a jerk, and that the development of the world over the last few years has led to too many people being sidelined and the other countries (the middle east) will take over Europe's idea that anarchism was the only way out.He also believes that the society doesn;t work for most people and that we could be in a 19th century place in that there are more people who know they are superfluous and will rise.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pankaj Mishra in "Age of Anger - A History of the Present" reminds Westerners of our violent transition to modernity and emphasizes much of the current turmoil is a symptom of the same transition. “The history of modernization is largely one of carnage and bedlam.” A unique take on the current world situation. The subject is fascinating and the reach from the 1800's to present is impressive. However, I think it would have been a better book if the author had not tried to include every example and quote he had available. His resources are substantial, but lose some emphasis by having a "bibliographic essay" instead of actual footnotes.