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

2.0

Very interesting book, but difficult to follow because of the author's decision to include only the most Exquisite less likely to be used by a common person words. I would have given it three stars if it hadn't been so overly pompous. Had I not being fluent in four languages, and had I not lived in Eastern Europe with a lot of connections to Turkey and Russia I may not have been able to follow this book. The author posits that most of the malcontent (or as he puts it "resentiment", because why use a common English word when you can be pompous for no reason) observed in the 19th and 20th and 21st century is kinked to the intellectual elite becoming inaccessible to the common person. So what does he do? He uses the most inaccessible language for a common person. Sadly, the book had a lot of good ideas. I'm not sure how many people will be impressed by it.