The fading light

How has our Made in USA world been crumbling since the events of 1989?

The end of the Cold War ushered in an "Age of Imitation" fraught with instability. After 1989, refusing to follow the Western example was not an option, which for the imitators was a humiliating neocolonial imposition, and among the imitated, it fostered imperial arrogance and a total disinterest in how other countries operated.

Krastev and Holmes argue that this is the origin of the fall of the liberal order: Russia and the United States favor the dismantling of global security, the European Union abandons the promises of its project, faith in democracy plummets...

The Light that Fades uncovers the causes of this perplexing scenario, a product of the neocolonial arrogance and anticolonial resistance engendered in 1989.

Reviews:
"An unblinkingly honest explanation of what went wrong in the West - and in the East - since 1989. [...] A book I highly recommend."
Tony Barber, Financial Times

"How liberalism became 'the God that failed' in Eastern Europe."
The Guardian

"Sharp, incisive, and devastating: an unforgettable analysis of why the light of liberalism has gone out in Eastern Europe and why resentment towards Western imitation has fueled the fury of populist revolt."
Michael Ignatieff, President of Central European University in Budapest.

"An invigorating analysis of post-Cold War politics that knocks down cherished assumptions and forces a new look at the complex dialectic between liberalism and illiberalism."
George Soros

"A book about imitation written by a pair of completely inimitable authors; the most original explanation I've read of the self-destruction of Western liberalism as a universal utopia."
Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia

"Ivan Krastev is one of the most fascinating thinkers of our time. A juggler of paradoxes, an attacker of widespread beliefs. You may not always agree, but you'll never be bored."
Robert Kagan, Washington Post

"Holmes is one of America's most brilliant political philosophers."
Tzvetan Todorov

"The argument of this book on imitation is truly original. It reminds us that liberal democracy depends not only on mechanical processes but on human uniqueness."
Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University

"Krastev is one of the most interesting intellectuals on the current scene throughout Europe."
Financial Times

"Ivan Krastev is one of the sharpest and most elegant political writers to emerge from Eastern Europe in recent years."
Sunday Times