Age of Anger: A History of the Present

In an impressively probing and timely work, Mishra, a novelist and cultural critic (A Great Clamour), illuminates intellectual patterns from the past 200 years that help explain our volatile present. In an age where tribal nationalism is on the rise and aggressive right-wing leaders are in power in Turkey, India, and the U.S., Mishra examines the modern world from the perspective of those left behind or rendered superfluous. He pays particular attention to the Enlightenment in 18th-century France and the clash between Voltaire’s meritocracy and Rousseau’s warning against “a commercial society based on mimetic desire, as a game rigged by and in favor of elites.” Mishra shows how Rousseau’s ideas presaged German Romanticism, subsequent revolutions throughout the world (both failed and successful), and today’s Hindu and Chinese nationalists. Mishra also discusses the relative latecomers to modernity in Europe (Germany, Russia, Italy) who sensed capitalism’s downside; the Asian leaders who “saw themselves as modernizers in a hurry”; and the reaction against modernity in the writings of Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Iranian novelist Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, and many others. This exploration of global unrest is dense, but it’s so well-written and informative that it manages to be highly engaging. (Feb.)