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A review by lucasmiller
Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra
5.0
I came to this book from Mishra's Op-Ed in the New York Times, "The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult." I'm no great reader of the NYT Op-Ed page, but a co-worker passed it along, and I found it quite striking. This set my expectations for Age of Anger, and it proved to be much more than I expected.
I don't know if I agree with all of Mr. Mishra's conclusions, but the sources he mines for an understanding of the particular form of grievance so common in the 21st century is incredibly intriguing to me. This book has created a reading list that will last me a couple of years I imagine.
Reassessments of the Enlightenment are above my intellectual pay grade for the most part, but Mishra does a lot of heavy lifting to fit his theories into accessible bite sized pieces so that all of the -isms and perspectives don't overwhelm. The downside to this program is that he is all over the place and seems to just pile connection on top of one another without feeling much pressure to bring all of his strands of thought together. This is grounded in the frequent citations from Rousseau, Nitzche, Tocqueville, and Herzen. But all of these figures, three very familiar ones, are re-contextualized in some pretty challenging ways.
This book is dark, but I was intrigued. The type of book I am more interested in interrogating then agreeing or disagreeing with. Read. Then hit me up so we can talk about it.
I don't know if I agree with all of Mr. Mishra's conclusions, but the sources he mines for an understanding of the particular form of grievance so common in the 21st century is incredibly intriguing to me. This book has created a reading list that will last me a couple of years I imagine.
Reassessments of the Enlightenment are above my intellectual pay grade for the most part, but Mishra does a lot of heavy lifting to fit his theories into accessible bite sized pieces so that all of the -isms and perspectives don't overwhelm. The downside to this program is that he is all over the place and seems to just pile connection on top of one another without feeling much pressure to bring all of his strands of thought together. This is grounded in the frequent citations from Rousseau, Nitzche, Tocqueville, and Herzen. But all of these figures, three very familiar ones, are re-contextualized in some pretty challenging ways.
This book is dark, but I was intrigued. The type of book I am more interested in interrogating then agreeing or disagreeing with. Read. Then hit me up so we can talk about it.