A review by chloehamburn
Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

4.0

Not sure what to rate this book because I have two general thoughts: one, this book was very nerdy and very much me in that it was an overview/synthesis of 18th and 19th century literature and I always enjoy collecting information; two, this book could use some serious organization. Truly the writer was all over the place in terms of chronology, ideas, regions... impossible to keep it orderly in my head as I listened. Jumped from ISIS to 19th century Russian philosophers to Nazism to Gandhi in India in the span of a few minutes, over and over again. I had this book on in the background as I cleaned so I wasn't too hung up on the order, just had it for the flow of information. It is an ambitious topic that in my opinion fails to deliver in full on its promise to connect modern anger with Western philosophical thought of recent centuries, but it doesn't mean that it's not an incredible book for its sheer amount of research. Academically speaking, it's a weak dissertation because the huge scope and span of the book gives the impression the author is cherry-picking facts and anecdotes across the ages as he pleases. I didn't notice any glaring examples but just had that sense of suspicion that someone was making it too easy to connect dots across history. Regardless, glad I got around to this one because it's certainly a timely issue that could use more information and research.

Have I mentioned that I love information?