When [Louis XIV’s finance minister] asked how the state could promote business interests, the lead Parisian merchant replied, “Laissez-nous faire”: Let us do it.

In the “New Wine in Old Bottles” section of Chapter 3, Zakaria explains the origins of the phrase “laissez-faire economics.” It refers to a style of economic policy that favors free markets, with minimal government interference. Sellers offer whatever goods and services they choose, and prices are set by the balance of supply and demand. Zakaria notes that although the expression came from France, it was the Netherlands and Britain that first demonstrated how laissez-faire works in practice. Later, when discussing the industrial revolution, he illustrates the point by noting that an important new piece of weaving technology, the flying shuttle, was apparently first invented in France but was banned there, only to be welcomed in Britain a short while later.

The Industrial Revolution changed American Society more than the American Revolution did.

he basis for this striking sentence, early in Chapter 5, is Zakaria’s definition of a revolution as “a comprehensive social, economic, and political transformation.” The American Revolution transformed the country’s politics, but the social and economic landscapes remained much the same as before. By contrast, the Industrial Revolution transformed the social landscape by drawing workers to cities and changing the nature of their work environment. It transformed the economic landscape by favoring market freedom and wealth creation over social equality and social safety nets. Finally, the Industrial Revolution transformed the political landscape by reversing the positions of the two major parties, turning the Republicans into the party of laissez-faire economics and the Democrats into the party of strong central government.

This is efficient economics but bad politics. It tells people that to make it in the new world, they need to fundamentally alter who they are.

The “efficient economics” Zakaria refers to in the “Somewhere, Anywhere” section of Chapter 7, is modern Democrats’ advice to workers who lose their jobs because of globalization and technological change. In essence, this message is telling workers that they should change careers, if necessary, by retraining and relocating. And they should encourage their children to go to college in order to avoid the same fate. Zakaria blames this message for the defection, in recent years, of union workers away from the Democratic Party.

The Reagan formula—free markets and spreading democracy—was dead. The path blazed by populists from Pat Buchanan to Newt Gingrich had led the party toward Donald Trump.

As Zakaria describes in the “Coming Apart” section of Chapter 8, Newt Gingrich’s formula for opposing Bill Clinton’s policy centrism was scorched-earth, culture-war populism of the sort pioneered by firebrand Pat Buchanan. The Republican Party under Reagan championed free-market capitalism and a pro-democracy foreign policy—in short, championed classically liberal values. That party eventually evolved into one that favored trade barriers, viewed foreign immigrants with suspicion, and cared more about law and order than about civil liberties. The rise to the presidency of Donald Trump, according to Zakaria, was not the cause of this change but a reflection of it.

We are the acids of modernity, choosing to act in ways that, in aggregate, create a world that leaves many feeling disquieted.

In the Conclusion chapter, Zakaria takes stock of American culture and global culture in their present state. He determines that the rootlessness and dissatisfaction many people feel is the result not of forces beyond our control but of choices we have all made as free individuals. These include choices like abandoning traditional religion, moving away from the places of our birth, and immersing ourselves in the unreliable information streams of social media. In short, we have used the freedoms we enjoy under classical liberalism to create a world we do not like.

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