Summary

Mishra argues that the post-Cold War consensus, which foresaw the global capitalist economy bringing about a peaceful world order, has failed. Western thought has for too long accepted this doctrine for truth, says the author, leading to the belief “that Anglo-American institutions of the nation state and liberal democracy will be gradually generalized around the world” (44). This Western model must be dismantled in order to stop the uprisings and violence which its protestors have begun, and many thinkers like Alexander Herzen predicted the adverse effects of such an acceptance of this model in the West.

In order to understand this ‘Western model,’ Mishra insists that the reader must analyze the post-1945 climate of ideas in the U.S. “Economic growth was posited as the end-all of political life and the chief marker of progress worldwide,” says...