After the Fall
From the End of History to the Crisis of Democracy, How Politicians Broke Our World
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 5 May 2026
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
A renowned political scientist’s searing explanation for the rightward turn of global politics since the end of the Cold War.
“A compelling analysis—profoundly challenging to so many Western assumptions—with an admirable blend of realism, imagination, unflinching criticism, and generosity.” ―Rory Stewart, author The Places in Between
The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in an era of tremendous political optimism: communism was receding and democracy was on the march in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and much of Asia. Even surviving communist regimes were adopting capitalism, and the stagflation of the 1970s and industrial strife of the 1980s were in the rearview mirror.
Four decades later, euphoria has given way to resentment and pessimism. Britain left the EU, Donald Trump’s populist crusade gained him the White House not once, but twice, and right-wing parties have gained power across Europe and other parts of the world on a scale not seen since the 1930s. What happened?
In After the Fall, pre-eminent political scientist Ian Shapiro argues that the current crisis was far from inevitable. Politicians made consistently bad choices on topics ranging from NATO’s future to the War on Terror to humanitarian intervention and the governance of their economies. In doing so, they fostered a crisis of confidence in political institutions, empowered anti-system parties and candidates, and produced a new Cold War as dangerous as the last.
By scrutinizing the roads not taken by politicians in the past, Shapiro maps out what better futures might still be possible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this incisive account, political scientist Shapiro (Uncommon Sense) considers how "the widespread optimism that prevailed when the Berlin Wall came down" has given way "to politics whose closest parallels are to the 1930s when fascism and communism obliterated democracies." Arguing that this moment was not inevitable, he tracks how it was caused by crucial missteps by a variety of leaders. These include, most prominently, the neoconservatives who saw in the aftermath of 9/11 an opportunity to remake the world in America's image, whose hubris was captured in the words of one Bush administration adviser: "We are an Empire... when we act we create our own reality." This sort of power drunkenness meant missed post-9/11 opportunities to strengthen UN leadership and a genuine rules-based order, Shapiro writes. In later chapters, he casts blame on President Clinton's dismissal of the idea that enlarging NATO would provoke Russia, as well as President Obama's refusal, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, to shore up the labor market, even as he was advised that male workers were losing high-paying jobs in record numbers, a factor crucial to the populist rise of Trump. Shapiro's sharp examination shows how voters around the world ended up disillusioned, a disenchantment he direly calls "the stuff of which dictatorships are made." It's a stark wake-up call. Correction: An earlier version of this review misattributed the quote from the Bush administration adviser.
