Populist rage ideological fracture economic and technological shocks war and an
international system studded with catastrophic risk-the early decades of the twenty-first
century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans
have lived and thrived through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions
and how can they help us to understand our fraught world? In this major work Fareed Zakaria
masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern
world. Three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First in the seventeenth-century
Netherlands a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the
world-and created politics as we know it today. Next the French Revolution an explosive era
that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally
the mother of all revolutions the Industrial Revolution which catapulted Great Britain and
the US to global dominance and created the modern world. Alongside these paradigm-shifting
historical events Zakaria probes four present-day revolutions: globalization technology
identity and geopolitics. For all their benefits the globalization and technology revolutions
have produced profound disruptions and pervasive anxiety and our identity. And increasingly
identity is the battlefield on which the twenty-first century's polarized politics are fought.
All this is set against a geopolitical revolution as great as the one that catapulted the
United States to world power in the late nineteenth century. Now we are entering a world in
which the US is no longer the dominant power. As we find ourselves at the nexus of four seismic
revolutions we can easily imagine a dark future. But Zakaria proves that pessimism is
premature. If we act wisely the liberal international order can be revived and populism
relegated to the ash heap of history. As few public intellectuals can Zakaria combines
intellectual range deep historical insight and uncanny prescience to once again reframe and
illuminate our turbulent present. His bold compelling arguments make this book essential
reading in our age of revolutions.
