Disorder cover art

Disorder

Hard Times in the 21st Century

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Disorder

By: Helen Thompson
Narrated by: Kitty Kelly
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About this listen

Getting to grips with the overlapping geopolitical, economic, and political crises faced by Western democratic societies in the 2020s.

The twenty-first century has brought a powerful tide of geopolitical, economic, and democratic shocks. Their fallout has led central banks to create over $25 trillion of new money, brought about a new age of geopolitical competition, destabilized the Middle East, ruptured the European Union, and exposed old political fault lines in the United States.

Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century is a long history of this present political moment. It recounts three histories—one about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies—and explains how in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic, the disruption in each became one big story. It shows how much of this turbulence originated in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies, and it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments energy invariably shapes will remain in place.

©2022 Helen Thompson (P)2022 Tantor Politics & Government 21st Century

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All stars
Most relevant
This is a very good and very important to understand what is actually happening around the world these days. Disastrous consequences of politics.

Very good!

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Helen's book broadens the economic and political history of our world, bringing all within the realm of the context of today... Excellent! A post 24th Feb, Ukraine invasion chapter would be a very useful update👍 🐰

A broader geographical and historical sweep!

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This was an extraordinary book telling a complex yet familiar story. I found it compelling if depressing in its fatalism. Sadly I must highlight multiple problems in the narration. 1. Too fast! This is complex stuff & listening in the car meant I often found myself trying to digest one idea before the next one was rattled off. 2. Poor tone. I’m afraid the narrator’s tone can only be described as bedtime story mode. When you’re bouncing through a narration in a jaunty way without a clue what you’re reading because that bit of your brain is wandering off somewhere else. I really wish Thompson could have narrated because she is so obviously passionate about the subject matter and would have created emphasis in the right places rather than this singsong disappointment. 3. Shocking proofing. Did anyone listen to this before it was released? ‘Aggregate’ pronounced like ‘egregious’, ‘gilets jaunes’ becoming ‘gilets jeunes’, ‘de Tocqueville’ pronounced ‘de tok A vil’. There were so many other word mangles & mispronunciations but these stick out. I don’t blame the narrator for this - it must be hard to read a book with unfamiliar words, but who proof-listened to check for this stuff? Anyway tremendous book but wish I had hard copy so I could mark it up.

A fascinating, smart book

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This is a fascinating historical perspective on the current global situation. It breaks down the geo-political world we are familiar with into threads and concepts many of which were new to me, but very useful in analysing where we are and how we got here. Much of the economic analysis is very technical and beyond my understanding, but I found it worth persevering with as the surrounding material is so illuminating. It’s a shame about the narrator who didn’t seem to understand what she was reading and so makes it harder to follow. She mispronounced several words all though the book (e.g. eschew pronounced estew!) but I still loved it and will re-read much of it after some more research. I would like to have heard her analysis of the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon in the UK but this is sadly missing. Still, you can’t have everything and my thinking has been changed on several things after reading this book.

A fascinating and important book

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Subject is fascinating, but the narration is just too fast to take it all in. I tried listening at reduced speed, but she sounded drunk, which was worse. Will probably have to buy the hardcopy.

Why so fast!?

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