About this item
In his widely acclaimed book Time to Start Thinking, Financial Times chief US columnist and commentator Edward Luce charted the course of America's relative decline, proving to be a prescient voice on our current social and political turmoil. In The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce makes a larger statement about the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of liberal democracy -- of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a terrifying symptom. Luce argues that we are on a menacing trajectory brought about by ignorance of what it took to build the West, arrogance towards society's economic losers, and complacency about our system's durability -- attitudes that have been emerging since the fall of the Berlin Wall. We cannot move forward without a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Unless the West can rekindle an economy that produces gains for the majority of its people, its political liberties may be doomed. The West's faith in history teaches us to take democracy for granted. Reality tells us something troublingly different. Combining on-the-ground reporting with intelligent synthesis of the literature and economic analysis, Luce offers a detailed projection of the consequences of the Trump administration, the rise of European populism, and a forward-thinking analysis of what those who believe in enlightenment values must do to defend them from the multiple onslaughts they face in the coming years.
About the Author
Edward Luce (born 1 June 1968 ) is the Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times, London. Earlier he was their South Asia Bureau Chief based at New Delhi. He is married to Priya Basu. Basu is Manager, Multilateral and Innovative Financing at the World Bank , and was formerly the Bank's Lead Economist for South Asia. He is the son of Richard Luce. Luce studied at various boarding schools around Sussex. He graduated in politics, philosophy and economics from New College, Oxford at the University of Oxford, and did his post graduation degree in newspaper journalism from City University, London. His first job was as a correspondent for The Guardian at Geneva. In 1995 he joined the Financial Times. He first reported for the FT from the Philippines after which he took one year sabbatical working in Washington DC as the speech writer to Larry Summers, then US treasury secretary…
