This truly excellent book by one of President Obama's former advisers is one of the many recent political history and theory books of the past several years addressing our collective concerns about the global rise of authoritarianism, and as such seems to be a fitting candidate for my first post to The Memory Cache. It's one of the best such books I've read.
The "fall" to which Rhodes refers is the period since the apex of American hegemony and global influence as the beacon of hope and spreading democracy, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The discussion is focused on the rise of nationalism in reaction to the American-led post-Cold War globalization, beginning with the career of Victor Orban in Hungary, then moving on to Vladimir Putin and Russia, and Xi Jinping in China.
In each case study, he shows how the very hubris of American-driven globalization of business, culture and values gave rise to a virulent reaction against globalization and American democratic values in many cultures. He illustrates particularly well the way in which nationalist authoritarians, especially Putin, have been able to use the U.S. military adventures and disasters of the 9/11 "forever" wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to create a populist narrative in their own countries about the greed, corruption and hypocrisy of our culture and values.
These narratives, often cynical and supported by lies and disinformation, but salted with a solid grain of truth, have bolstered these autocratic leaders' popularity at home, and their calls for nationalist and authoritarian opposition to the American-led, democratically organized world.
Rhodes' book is particularly successful and effective, because it shows us how we often appear to others around the world, outside our own self-admiring cultural bubble of democratic Western values. A disturbing and important contribution to the urgent discussion of the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism around the world.
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