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Introduction: A Multitude of Revolutions

In Age of Revolutions, Fareed Zakaria tackles the following problem: classical liberalism, which until recently enjoyed widespread and growing popularity as a form of political culture, is today meeting with increased resistance. By classical liberalism, Zakaria means the use of democratic processes to safeguard an individual’s rights and liberties, and the encouraging of economic productivity by leaving markets free to act and keeping barriers to international trade low. Not long ago, the political Left and the political Right both largely embraced this vision and disagreed mostly over details. Today, Left and Right alike (but especially the Right, in Zakaria’s assessment) have started to back away from classically liberal ideals. Increasingly, people are falling in line behind political leaders who seek to restrict the freedoms of the political opposition, who favor higher trade barriers, and who view democratic processes with disdain.

Read about the background of Age of Revolutions author Fareed Zakaria.

This realignment of political orientations has the makings of a revolution, by which Zakaria means the comprehensive transformation of a nation’s society, economy, and politics. He plans to look at past revolutions to see what can be learned and applied to the present situation. Progress toward stability and prosperity has often been unsteady and accompanied by backlash—one or more forces that resist and threaten to reverse the progress. Perhaps the outlines of our future can be glimpsed in the aftermaths of past revolutions.

Part I: Revolutions Past

The first three chapters cover political revolutions. Chapter 1 describes the rise of the first liberal state, the Dutch Republic, in the late 1500s. For various reasons, including ones related to geography and technology, the Netherlands became a society where unorthodox and innovative ways of thinking were valued, and where government acted to promote the general welfare by making many people prosperous, not just an elite few. Chapter 2 narrates the transfer of this model of governance to England when the Netherlands’ William of Orange and his wife Mary became rulers of Great Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. William and Mary’s reign ushered in a long period of growing religious toleration and set the stage for Britain’s dominance as a global colonial power. A century later, as Chapter 3 details, France would undergo a much more painful period of modernization: the French Revolution was bloody and in many ways illiberal. It was followed, in Zakaria’s telling, not by the kind of social health Britain was then enjoying, but by a century and a half of political instability. Thus, whereas the backlash against liberalism in the Netherlands was mild (regional tensions between those who profited greatly and those who profited less), the backlash against the French Revolution was severe and long-lasting.

Read about Main Idea #3 of the book: Revolution naturally leads to backlash.

The next two chapters are about the Industrial Revolution, first in Great Britain and then in the United States. Chapter 4 reviews the technological advances that drove Britain’s industrialization, and the economic benefits that accrued to working people. It also describes the evolving political landscape. Parliament reformed itself to better represent the working classes’ interests. A ban on grain imports that kept bread prices high was repealed, to the benefit of urban workers and the detriment of rural, grain-growing landowners. In due course, as told in Chapter 5, the United States went through its own version of an industry-driven social, economic, and political transformation. Here, too, the working classes saw their standard of living rise, and here, too, the political landscape changed over time. Notably, wealthy industrialists who once were happy to see the national government encourage commerce by building infrastructure came to want less government interference in the markets. Meanwhile, rural agrarian interests that once resented the federal government came to see the benefits of government aid for those left behind by progress. In the United States, then, backlash to progress took the form of political realignment as various interest groups altered their positions.

Read an explanation about a key quote (#2) about the importance of the Industrial Revolution.

Part II: Revolutions Present

Part I is essentially a historically-based argument for the virtues of liberalism: done right, liberalism makes people happier by raising their standard of living and ensuring peace and good order. Part II explores several present-day challenges classical liberalism faces—developments that threaten to reverse the gains described in Part I. The challenge in Chapter 6 is globalization, which is the merging of many national markets into a single world market. Globalization makes it possible for households in the United States to enjoy consumer goods made elsewhere, but on the flip side, globalization makes it easier for American workers to lose jobs due to foreign competition. In Chapter 7, the challenge to liberalism is the explosive growth of information technology. The Internet has become an indispensable delivery system for goods and services, but it has also become a delivery system for misinformation and social and psychological dysfunction. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence threatens to make many knowledge-industry jobs obsolete, even as gene editing technology raises the frightening prospect of human nature itself being subject to routine tinkering. It is understandable that some people reject these gifts classical liberalism has left on their doorstep.

Read about Main Idea #1 of Age of Revolutions: Classical liberalism has made the world a better place.

In Chapter 8, Zakaria’s a new idea starts to emerge: material prosperity alone does not make people happy. Rather, once people are materially prosperous, they shift the focus of their discontent to to higher-order concerns.   Often, their unhappiness centers on some form of group identity—racial, sexual, or religious. Zakaria takes a dim view of identity politics. He is critical of the Left’s willingness to embrace tactics like shouting down conservative speakers and to entertain extreme ideas like defunding police departments. But he is even more critical of the Right’s willingness to stoke racial, religious and ideological resentments and to use scorched-earth tactics, not just on college campuses and in urban streets, but in the halls of government.   Chapter 9, finally, steps back to consider the big picture. The United States is losing the ability to dictate how the rest of the world will live, and with it is losing the ability to guarantee a world order in which peace is maintained through widespread commitment to democratic governance and mutually beneficial trade relationships.

Read about Main Idea #2: The Left-versus-Right debate is giving way to a debate about Open-versus-Closed.

Conclusion: The Infinite Abyss

Having examined in detail a great many specific historical examples of progress and backlash, Zakaria arrives at a broad, high-level conclusion: the problems of classical liberalism are baked in. Classical liberalism promotes a kind of consumerist superficiality, a distancing from values people do not (it turns out) easily let go of, such as loyalty to family and tribe or faith in God. The reason Zakaria nonetheless holds to liberalism as a way forward for humanity is that he doesn’t believe the old, pre-liberal ways really satisfy. There are good reasons why they have been left behind, and those are reasons not to go back to them.

Read a brief essay about Age of Revolutions and the contentious 2024 U.S. Presidential election.

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