The Revenge of History: The Battle for the Twenty First Century

The Revenge of History: The Battle for the Twenty-First Century is a 2012 book by British journalist and writer Seumas Milne. An updated edition was published in 2013.

The Revenge of History: The Battle for the Twenty First Century
Cover of the first edition
AuthorSeumas Milne
LanguageEnglish
Published2012
PublisherVerso Books
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages298
ISBN9781781680919

Synopsis

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The book is a collection of Milne's columns published in The Guardian over 10 years. Verso Books describes The Revenge of History as an account of the first decade of the twenty-first century . The book indicts the United States presented as a global and corporate empire in decline. Milne also examines the causes of the credit crisis and the Great Recession, claims the policy of humanitarian military intervention to be a failed land grab, offers an explanation of the dynamo behind the roaring Chinese economy and introduces new models of society flourishing in Latin America.

Reception

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Naomi Klein praised The Revenge of History as "a book with an urgent message" and wrote that "Reading Seumas Milne, one often has a feeling of physical relief: finally someone not only sees the truth but articulates it with thrilling erudition and moral clarity".[1]

In The Guardian Owen Hatherley wrote "Milne has a knack for making arguments which when published are excoriated as unforgivable, and which then gradually become guiltily commonsensical" and broadly praised the work.[2]

Al Jazeera published a review which suggested that "As The Revenge of History reminds us, it is the left which has got the major judgement calls of the last 10 years – on economic and foreign policy – essentially correct, while the political right and many mainstream liberals have got them badly wrong" and which also praised the book.[3]

References

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