From one of our foremost public intellectuals an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza its
historical conditions and moral and geopolitical ramificationsMemory of the Holocaust the
ultimate atrocity of Europe's civil wars and the paradigmatic genocide has shaped the Western
political and moral imagination in the postwar era. Fears of its recurrence have been routinely
invoked to justify Israel's policies against Palestinians. But for most people around the world
- the 'darker peoples' in W. E. B Du Bois's words - the main historical memory is of the
traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism and the central event of the twentieth
century is decolonisation - freedom from the white man's world. The World after Gaza takes the
war in the Middle East and the bitterly polarised reaction to it within as well as outside the
West as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of two competing narratives of the last
century: the West's triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism and
the spread of liberal capitalism and the darker peoples's frequently thwarted vision of racial
equality. At a moment when the world's balance of power is shifting and a long-dominant Western
minority no longer commands the same authority and credibility it is critically important to
enter the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world's population. As old
touchstones and landmarks crumble only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can
reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise powerful
and pointed treatise Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis
- about whether some lives matter more than others why identity politics built around memories
of suffering is being widely embraced and why racial antagonisms are intensifying amid a
far-right surge in the West threatening a global conflagration. The World after Gaza is an
indispensable moral guide to our past present and future.
