Empire of Democracy

The Remaking of the West Since the Cold War, 1971–2017

By: Simon Reid-Henry

Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick

The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day—from the Cold War to the 2008 financial crisis and wars in the Middle East—Empire of Democracy is “a superbly informed and riveting historical analysis of our contemporary era” (Charles S. Maier, Harvard University).

Half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War and amidst a world economic crisis, the Western democracies were forced to undergo a profound transformation. Against what some saw as a full-scale “crisis of democracy”—with race riots, anti-Vietnam marches and a wave of worker discontent sowing crisis from one nation to the next—a new political-economic order was devised and the postwar social contract was torn up and written anew.

In this epic narrative of the events that have shaped our own times, Simon Reid-Henry shows how liberal democracy, and western history with it, was profoundly reimagined when the postwar Golden Age ended. As the institutions of liberal rule were reinvented, a new generation of politicians emerged: Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, Kohl. The late twentieth century heyday they oversaw carried the Western democracies triumphantly to victory in the Cold War and into the economic boom of the 1990s. But equally it led them into the fiasco of Iraq, to the high drama of the financial crisis in 2007/8, and ultimately to the anti-liberal surge of our own times.

The present crisis of liberalism is leading us toward as yet unscripted decades. The era we have all been living through is closing out, and democracy is turning on its axis once again. “Brilliantly, Reid-Henry calls for the salvation of democracy from the choices of its own leaders if it is to survive” (Samuel Moyn, Yale University).

Great overview, minor errors

While a few minor errors make me concerned about the research and editing (Pentium is an Intel product, not a competitor to Intel; Orange and AT&T are service providers, not competitors to Nokia; Dayton, Ohio is not where NASCAR’s Daytona 500 is held; “incumbent” is not a synonym for “candidate”; Bradley (Chelsea) Manning did not receive a “capital sentence”; etc.), these errors occur almost exclusively in asides or as examples and do interfere with the main narrative. The book overall is a fantastic overview of liberal democracy and its attendant travails over the past half century. I have recommended it to a number of people already.

Excellent Effort Despite Minor Flaws

A few factual errors aside, particularly as they relate to U.S. politics, the book’s ambitiousness is laudable and excellently executed. The biggest problem for me as an academic is that, particularly towards the end, the author struggles to maintain his distance from events. The writing becomes emotionally loaded, particularly via his diction. It is understandable but not helpful if his goal is to seem a detached authority on the subject. It doesn’t, for me, diminish its value. But I could see a lot of conservatives dismissing the book out of hand based on a few not very generous excerpts