Age of Anger Study Guide

Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra

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Contents
Age of Anger Study Guide........................................................................................................... 1

Contents...................................................................................................................................... 2

Summary..................................................................................................................................... 3

Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures................................................................................................. 5

Clearing a Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions.............................................................. 8

Loving Oneself Through Others: Progress and Its Contradictions.............................................. 12

Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism and Revolution.............................................................. 15

Regaining My Religion (Part I: Nationalism Unbound - Part II: Messianic Visions)..................... 18

Finding True Freedom and Equality: The Heritage of Nihilism................................................... 24

Epilogue: Finding Reality........................................................................................................... 28

Important People....................................................................................................................... 31

Objects/Places........................................................................................................................... 34

Themes...................................................................................................................................... 37

Styles......................................................................................................................................... 41

Quotes....................................................................................................................................... 43

Topics for Discussion................................................................................................................. 47

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Summary
The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Mishra, Pankaj. Age of
Anger. Macmillan, 2018.

Pankaj Mishra’s book is divided into seven chapters, only one of which -- “Regaining My
Religion” -- is further divided into two sections. Each chapter of the book attempts to
address a given period in history and some corresponding trends in intellectual thought,
all pertaining to the origins of today’s global crisis. In attempting to explain the rise of
far-right parties, militant nationalism, and terrorism, among other phenomena, the
author embarks on a lengthy and, for the most part, chronologically coherent journey
from the eighteenth century to the present day.

The first chapter, “Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures,” the author puts forward his
argument that the rise of liberal capitalism and cosmopolitan liberalism in the eighteenth
century produced events and consequences whose ramifications are felt today through
the widespread discontent we see. He briefly touches upon intellectuals whom he
quotes throughout the book, such as Rousseau. The second chapter, “Clearing a
Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions,” takes a deeper look at the Western
institutions and assumptions prevailing in today’s world order, pointing out their origins
in Revolutionary France and indicating that the myths and ideas upon which the world
order was built was never as well-functioning or egalitarian as it was made to seem.
Thus, the dichotomy of the West and non-West extends back centuries and is grounded
in Enlightenment ideals to a large extent.

The third chapter, “Loving Oneself Through Others: Progress and Its Contradictions,”
dives into the subject of mimetic rivalry, or the process by which non-Western countries,
often former colonies, struggled and continue to struggle with feelings of material envy
and the desire to modernize in a way similar to the West. The projection of Western
ideals onto non-Western spaces caused numerous national identity crises which were
detrimental to proper indigenous development and sovereignty. Then, the fourth
chapter, “Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism, and Revolution,” focuses specifically
on former victims of imperial interference, in particular Iran, in order to demonstrate the
devastating effects of non-Western elites adopting ‘Western’ values and strategies for
development often against the will of the common people, for whom modernization
failed to deliver the expected benefits.

The fifth chapter is called “Regaining My Religion” and is divided into Part I,
“Nationalism Unbound,” and Part II, “Messianic Vision.” It recounts the rise of national
identity as a collective mobilizer and the consequent violence and radicalism associated
with its more militant form, in which people believe that they are the “chosen ones” over
other groups. “Finding True Freedom and Equality: The Heritage of Nihilism” is the sixth
and penultimate chapter of the book, examining violent attempts at anarchist rebellion
and the intellectual movement, led by Nietzsche, called nihilism. The final chapter of
Age of Anger is “Epilogue: Finding Reality,” which summarizes the main points touched

3
upon in the previous chapters and returns to the present day in order to show the
effects of historical movements in the modern world.

4
Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures
Summary
Author Pankaj Mishra begins the first chapter of Age of Anger by describing the Italian
poet Gabriele D’Annunzio’s occupation of the town of Fiume in Italy in September 1919.
The author explains that this spectacle of violent reassertion of manhood is a forgotten
event in history which inspired Hitler, Mussolini, and many others in direct and indirect
ways. This “terroristic violence” (9) is seen as the expression of a new mode of politics,
from nationalism to terrorism, and was the result of global capitalism’s first crises. The
author explains D’Annunzio’s appeal to successors as such: “Today, as alienated
radicals from all over the world flock to join violent, misogynist and sexually
transgressive movement…D’Annunzio’s secession – moral, intellectual, and aesthetic
as well as military – from an evidently irredeemable society seems a watershed moment
in the history of our present” (10).

Mishra seeks to explain the rise of terrorism, nationalism, and other forms of chaos in
today’s “global civil war,” (11) therefore he asserts his point of view that Islam-centric
accounts of such problems are misleading and incorrect. The real reason for this “danse
macabre” (12) is, to Mishra, the rise of liberal capitalism following the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Cosmopolitan liberalism, originally advocated by eighteenth-century
thinkers such as Montesquieu and Adam Smith, evolved into rapid globalization, which
“has everywhere weakened older forms of authority” (14) and led to man feeling the
“shock of events which take place at the other end of the globe” (14). At the same time,
Mishra points out that far from fostering a feeling of international ‘neighbourliness,’ hate-
mongering is on the rise and social media allows for the further desensitization to
hatred, anger, and extreme violence.

Mishra explains that unprecedented disorder in the political, economic, and social
spheres of life which “accompanied the rise of the industrial capitalist economy in
nineteenth-century Europe…is now infecting much vaster regions” (16). In this “global
age of frantic individualism,” (17) there has been a shift away from collectivized thinking
of one’s own society and a shift towards individual rights, which therefore makes social
discrimination and inequality highly noticeable to a person. Isolation in the form of the
loss of postcolonial nationalism further emphasizes new resentments and hierarchies,
initiating the global turn to authoritarianism.

Mishra proceeds to briefly outline the rise of nationalisms in Europe following the
beginning of industrial capitalism and touches upon the disastrous results of this
nationalism in the form of the World Wars. The pseudo-explanations, such as
Islamofascism and Islamic fundamentalism, frequently offered for current world issues
are therefore inaccurate because of the historical complexity of the issues. Mishra
returns to Rousseau’s theories of the eighteenth century in order to demonstrate that
European Enlightenment ideals held sacred by Westerners were themselves fodder for
“young provincials in Germany…who simmered with resentment against a largely

5
metropolitan civilization…that seemed to deny them a rooted and authentic existence”
(27).

Mishra proceeds to touch upon numerous writers of fiction and poetry such as Pushkin,
Dostoevsky, Rimbaud, and more, using their work as an example of the socio-political
climate of individualism and the consequent – oftentimes extremely violent and sinful --
need for “release from boredom, stagnation and mediocrity” (30) which such a climate
engendered. Mishra calls this feeling a “militant secession from a civilization premised
on gradual progress under liberal-democrat trustees” (31) and finds that in today’s
world, like in the aftermath of the First World War, “a moral and spiritual vacuum is yet
again filled with anarchic expressions of individuality, and mad quests for substitute
religions and modes of transcendence” (33).

Finally, towards the end of this chapter, Mishra ponders the fear of decadence and
emasculation which haunted men in the nineteenth century, who felt a mismatch
between their ideals and their opportunities in the face of politically weak systems. He
concludes by stating that his book takes much for granted, such as the nation-building
and globalization occurring in the background of history, and will focus more on
neglected eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas, writers, and more, whose works
can more accurately provide a picture of today’s violence.

Analysis
Pankaj Mishra begins Age of Anger with the assertion that a universal crisis is underway
in which violence, terrorism, despotism, and authoritarianism, among other things,
prevail amid the continuing globalization of societies and economies, and that this crisis
is not new. As this first chapter is the prologue to the rest of the book, the author states
his perspective on the crisis as being different from the mainstream one which points
fingers at Islam and religious extremism as the causes for the mayhem and instead
argues that the disorder which followed the rise of the industrial capitalist economy, as
far back as the nineteenth century, is to blame for the ‘infection’ in other parts of the
world.

Though he does not explicitly divulge this information until the end of the chapter, it is
important for the reader to note that Mishra grew up in India, watching his parents react
to the global changes which altered pre-modern myths, religions, and customs in his
native country. This is significant because Mishra accompanies this information with the
admission that his intellectual formation has been European and American, therefore he
is a “stepchild of the West…sympathetic to both sides of the debate” (41) in which
modern liberalism, so often equated with Western intellectual history, is pitted against
Eastern culture and knowledge. The entire chapter recognizes this dichotomy between
East and West as one which exists in terms of interpretation and framing of global
upheaval, yet one which is also baseless in the sense that “polemical representatives of
East and West – loss and fulfilment, deprivation and plenitude” (41) which spur the
discontentment that fuels violence and rebellion, often coexist within one and the same
individual. Therefore, Mishra acknowledges his divided perspective while

6
simultaneously discrediting its power in the academic debate he is to engage in
throughout the pages of the book.

Part of Mishra’s quest in investigating the causes of this global crisis involves the
discrediting of yet another misleading idea: that of Islamic fundamentalism as the
primary cause of terrorism and the ‘clash of civilizations’ so often cited by academics,
politicians, journalists, and ordinary people alike. The author’s reasoning behind his
skepticism is that he views the scapegoating of Islam as “a concept in search of some
content,” (25) and just another example of fear inducing people to blame others
“socialists, liberals, a dark-skinned alien in the White House, Muslims,” (25) for their
own problems and insecurities. To Mishra, Islamophobia is still just a phobia, an
expression of fear, and not a factual force. Like all other binary oppositions, it pits ‘us’
versus the alien and problematic ‘them,’ yet the theory of a clash between the West and
Islam gained notorious repute with 9/11 and subsequent events. As for groups like ISIS
and Al-Qaeda, Mishra explains that fanatical ethno-nationalism exists outside of Islam,
too, and is manipulated by demagogues all over the world, not just the Muslim ones:
when Europe was modernizing in the nineteenth century, the author reminds us, anti-
Semitism was another ‘phobia’ manipulated by demagogues, and in Israel today,
nationalist Israelis manage to echo exactly the same rhetoric towards their perceived
enemies as anti-Semites once employed. Such paradoxes cannot but point away from
Islamic fundamentalism as the cause of hatred and ethno-nationalist terrorism.

Mishra’s writing in “Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures” is erudite, demonstrating the

author’s extensive knowledge of historical trends, political climates, and ideologies, yet
it is his deft use of quotations and references to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
theorists’ thinking which most strengthen his argument. By invoking the works of a
myriad of well-known intellectuals and authors such as Rousseau, Nietzsche, Marx,
Dostoevsky, Stendhal, and more, the author exhibits his skill at interweaving commonly-
held modern-day perspectives of global affairs with historically-parallel situations and
climates. The end product is a convincing and clear analysis of present times with
illuminating explanations stemming from oft-forgotten ideas put forth centuries ago. The
realization that today does not exist independently of yesterday is a key feature of
Mishra’s prologue and prepares the reader for a similar style of analysis later in the
book.

Vocabulary
irreducible, apotheosis, partisan, despotism, authoritarianism, self-exaltation, eclectic,
messianic, screed, abject, cognitive, disenchanted, emancipation, secession, stringent,
venality

7
Clearing a Space: History’s Winners and
Their Illusions
Summary
Mishra argues that the post-Cold War consensus, which foresaw the global capitalist
economy bringing about a peaceful world order, has failed. Western thought has for too
long accepted this doctrine for truth, says the author, leading to the belief “that Anglo-
American institutions of the nation state and liberal democracy will be gradually
generalized around the world” (44). This Western model must be dismantled in order to
stop the uprisings and violence which its protestors have begun, and many thinkers like
Alexander Herzen predicted the adverse effects of such an acceptance of this model in
the West.

In order to understand this ‘Western model,’ Mishra insists that the reader must analyze
the post-1945 climate of ideas in the U.S. “Economic growth was posited as the end-all
of political life and the chief marker of progress worldwide,” says Mishra, “not to mention
the gateway to happiness” (49). Yet, the varying approaches to capitalism from 1945
onwards, though accounting for changing understandings of the market, did not account
for the fact that economic growth hadn’t fixed any of the problems which had startled the
world in the first half of the twentieth century. Ethnic cleansing reappeared in Europe
after 1989, and later fundamentalist hatred brought about 9/11, “briefly disrupted
celebrations of a world benignly globalized by capital” (53).

The author posits that these shocks failed to reignite debate about the Western model
and its ability to ensure peace, instead it further entrenched binary oppositions between
the ‘free’ and ‘unfree’ worlds, which Mishra says revived “nineteenth-century Western
clichés about the non-West” (54). “Once again,” he writes, “the secular and democratic
West, identified with the legacy of the Enlightenment…seemed called upon to subdue
its perennially backward other” (54). This is termed ‘historical amnesia’ by the author,
who explains that the West’s self-absorbed focus on its own ‘progress’ erases the heavy
costs associated with said progress and undermines attempts to explain the “violence
and hysteria” (56) occurring today. Mishra reminds the reader that it was the West,
namely France, which introduced terror into politics, and that the Atlantic West was the
first region in which religious fundamentalism first arose. Mishra compares ISIS’s ability
to recruit members with the lessons learned from tormented rational thinkers of the past,
who were desperate to latch onto the existence of a Creator.

The French and the industrial revolutions were “sharp [breaks] in historical continuity”
(58) and ushered in the modern era, changing the way people thought about their ability
to control their own destinies and social mobility. God was replaced by science in the
seventeenth century, and the aforementioned revolutions further pushed a “new religion
of secular progress” (61) in which the emerging classes railed against previous
exclusions from social hierarchies and sought to use their talents to shape their lives.

8
Yet, these ideas, supported by the work of the French Enlightenment ‘philosophes’, was
never intended to be truly democratic, according to the author. Thus, radical ideas
emerging from the French Revolution espousing rational thought and liberty led to the
appeal of democracy, which later led to Fascists, among others, claiming to “be the real
democrats, realizing a deeper principle of equality…than the bourgeois liberal
democrats” (72).

The author acknowledges the power of the ideas of liberty, rational thought, fraternity,
and more, yet he writes that the French Revolution’s violent side which wreaked havoc
upon other countries also led to those countries engaging in ‘appropriative mimicry’:
“desiring objects because the desires of others tell us that they are something to be
desired” (69). It is easy to see, says Mishra, how and why other countries felt that they
must catch up to the West in any and every way, leading to great disappointment and
resentment upon the realization that ‘catching up’ simply isn’t possible.

Mishra goes on to write of the individualism which prevails in the West and which
pushes forward the capitalist machine. Writers and thinkers such as Dostoevsky railed
against the Western assumptions that men will always be rational and open to being
moulded by their respective systems, etc. Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground
espoused his hatred of this mentality and helps to explain the current violence occurring
around the world, in which people engage in a rebellion against their own humiliating
realities. The aforementioned literary work inspired Nietzche’s idea of ressentiment,
which Mishra speaks of often and which he describes as an “existential resentment of
other people’s being, caused by an intense mix of envy and sense of humiliation and
powerlessness” (20).

Mishra then returns to the topic of Europe’s imperialism around the globe and the
appropriative mimicry which occurs even today among other peoples who “have
succumbed to the fantasies of consumerism without being able to satisfy them” (83).
This resentment and anger explains the appeal of ISIS to many disaffected Muslim
youths in European countries just as it explains the white supremacist terrorism which
occurs in the United States, for example. Yet, the author reminds the reader that the
West often focuses on Islam as the source of much violence, since it appears easier to
scapegoat someone who is ‘other.’

Analysis
In “Clearing a Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions,” the author dissects the
Western model of world order which sees free-market capitalism and liberal
institutionalism as the ultimate antidotes to disorder and poverty, pushing all the
countries on Earth further along to an ideal and peaceful modernity. He examines the
nineteenth-century roots of this model, tracing back to Enlightenment thoughts on
rationalism and liberty, then discusses the way that modern-day proponents of this
model cling to those nineteenth-century ideals in a modern world. Mishra exposes the
flaws of this model by demonstrating the fact that it was never a coherent or fool-proof
one to begin with, since Enlightenment thought from around the time of the French

9
Revolution espoused liberal ideals which were later subverted to support all kinds of
rebellious movements and dangerous ideologies. The progression of these ideas is
smooth and eloquent, as in the previous chapter, and leaves much for the reader to
analyze and digest.

Mishra carefully exposes the construction of numerous binary oppositions in order to

demonstrate that they are not innate in society and that they are, again, constructed by
man himself. The binary oppositions he mentions explicitly or refers to indirectly include
the ‘free’ versus the ‘unfree’ world, and the West versus Islam. He previously refers to
those who employ such clichés in their work as “intellectual robots of the Cold War who
were programmed” (25) to think in such a fashion. The vocabulary he uses, including
‘robots’ and ‘programmed’ reveals his opinion that the creation of those binary
oppositions was done intentionally and then propagated by those who either did not
know better or who desired to draw such harsh lines between groups. Mishra points to
real-world events which help propagate these ideas, such as 9/11: “Once again the
secular and democratic West, identified with the legacy of the Enlightenment (reason,
individual autonomy, freedom of speech), seemed called upon to subdue its perennially
backward other,” (54) the author writes. By demonstrating how and why the West
versus Islam, for example, can be employed or entrenched in the minds of a group of
people through real-world events as well as through academic trends, Mishra shows
that these binaries are tools and not innate differences between humans.

In this chapter of the book, Mishra defines and expands on ‘ressentiment,’ which arose
in “Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures,” because it is key to understanding the world crisis
which he sees taking place around the globe. Originally coined by Nietzsche,
ressentiment is, according to the author, “existential resentment of other people’s being,
caused by an intense mix of envy and sense of humiliation and powerlessness” (20). To
the author, this feeling is only natural when people for whom the Western model of
progress has not borne considerable fruits realize their disadvantage. He previously
says, “Their evidently natural rights to life, liberty and security, already challenged by
deep-rooted inequality, are threatened by political dysfunction and economic stagnation,
and, in places affected by climate change, a scarcity and suffering characteristic of pre-
modern economic life” (20). Therefore, the author’s use of Nietzsche’s term in the
current chapter is not misplaced when he refers to the disaffected and disillusioned
figures of modernity, nor is it misplaced when he extends that group to include the
hateful terrorists wreaking havoc across metropolises and the far-right nationalists
across the globe. To Mishra, ‘ressentiment’ is the fundamental emotional driving force
behind actions which on-lookers frequently look at and ask “How could someone
do/think/say this?”

Once more in this chapter, the author’s well-timed jumps from the present-day to the
past aid the reader in understanding how history, or at least the way in which it appears
to us, is “highly contingent” (44). Nothing that exists in our modern world was inevitable,
rather it was a consequence of some distant choice, or idea, or movement. The former
view of historical inevitability is both unsustainable and extremely naïve, and the author
effectively proves this by referring back to nineteenth-century, and sometimes even
more ancient, intellectual processes which resulted in some of the taken-for-granted

10
assumptions many hold today. For example, the notion that secularism is the better
companion to a nation-state and a free-market economy than religion is one which
originated in a long and arduous process by which religion was called into question
alongside God as the ultimate authority. Realizations about authority, individuality, and
social mobility came after the ‘fall’ of God from the primary position of power in the
minds of the everyday citizen. This later evolved into secularism as a guiding principle in
many nation-states, yet the author is careful to emphasize the fact that this process of
intellectual evolution and adaptation was in no way inevitable. His references to past
philosophers and writers aid his argument and effectively create a web of connected
ideas.

Thus, in this chapter, the author focuses heavily on binary oppositions in order to prove
their construction and not their truth, and in a similar fashion he dissects the Western
model of world order and other present-day assumptions in order to disprove theories of
historical inevitability. ‘Ressentiment’ continues to be the central thread which Mishra
uses to explain the violence and anger felt by many today.

Vocabulary
metamorphosis, dandyism, totalitarianism, sensuousness, callous, hedonism,
synergize, maladjustment, erratic, antagonism, emulation, caustically, paradigmatic

11
Loving Oneself Through Others:
Progress and Its Contradictions
Summary
The third chapter of Age of Anger compares and contrasts two intellectual thinkers of
the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: Voltaire and Rousseau. Firstly, the author
introduces the era, which had begun to turn away from “life ideals dating back to the
Middle Ages” (89). Trade and consumerism were promoted on a grand scale and luxury
was deemed a legitimate goal. All classes, including the lower ones, would henceforth
seek to increase their wealth for the sole purpose of having more wealth. Montaigne
and Adam Smith argued that the pursuit of individual economic interests would benefit
the public, and that this same pursuit would become a “constructive moral and social
force” (92).

Voltaire was born a commoner but felt the mismatch between his own talents and his
ability to climb the social ladder of the old era, thus he hailed the beginning of this
‘modern’ time of global trade and entrepreneurship with joy. On the other hand,
Rousseau had experienced loneliness and restless movement without a home, thus
viewing the “new commercial society, which was acquiring its main features of class
divisions, inequality and callous elites during the eighteenth century, [as] corrupt,
hypocritical and cruel with its prescribed values of wealth, vanity and ostentation” (94).
Though both Rousseau and Voltaire became famous ‘philosophes’ of the
Enlightenment, earning money and fame, Rousseau continued to feel that the ‘progress’
which Western Europe was experiencing at the time actually enslaved men in its
institutions and in its ability to make the powerless “enviously imitate the powerful” (96).

Rousseau predicted that men would lose their sense of friendship and resent one
another, and would “eventually recoil from their alienation in the modern world into
desperate pleadings to God” (96). The author states that this sentiment describes the
“quintessential inner experience of modernity for most people: the uprooted outsider in
the commercial metropolis, aspiring for a place in it, and struggling with complex
feelings of envy, fascination, revulsion and rejection” (97). Rousseau philosophized
about this dilemma and concluded that Sparta was an ideal society: “small, harsh, self-
sufficient, fiercely patriotic and defiantly un-cosmopolitan and uncommercial” (99). As a
result, Rousseau and Voltaire violently disagreed on many subjects.

Voltaire supported top-down modernization, leading him and many other ‘philosophes’
to communicate with and support European leaders such as Frederick the Great of
Prussia, Peter the Great of Russia, and Catherine the Great, also of Russia. The
‘philosophes’ wanted to see the Westernization of the East, which had dire
consequences for Eastern populations. Peter the Great’s attempts to strengthen his
army and modernize through war led to the oppression of serfs, and Catherine the
Great entered into war against Turkey and Poland with Voltaire’s support, perceiving

12
herself just in her xenophobic efforts to strip them of their ethnic individuality. The
‘philosophes’ had “already shown… how reason could degenerate into dogma and new,
more extensive forms of domination” (112).

Rousseau railed against the ‘philosophes’ and continued to dream of his modern
version of Sparta, which saw sexes separated and given different roles, and soldier-
citizens fostering shared values in society. However, the author says, Rousseau had
unintentionally sown the seeds of militant cultural nationalism. In fact, Mishra writes that
against “today’s backdrop of near-universal political rage, history’s greatest militant
lowbrow seems to have grasped, and embodied, better than anyone the incendiary
appeal of victimhood in societies built around the pursuit of wealth and power” (119).
Therefore, those “who perceive themselves as left or pushed behind by a selfish
conspiratorial minority can be susceptible to political seducers from any point on the
ideological spectrum,” (119) which helps to explain much of the radical extremism and
discontent festering in today’s world.

Analysis
“Loving Oneself Through Others: Progress and Its Contradictions” dwells increasingly
on the parallels between movements originating in the past and their violent or radical
interpretations in the present, showing that the present state of affairs in the world is
neither new, nor born in a vacuum. The late eighteenth century saw a rise of
commercial society which prioritized wealth over other, older symbols of value and
which arguably led to individuals in such a society becoming individualistic, focused on
themselves, competitive, ambitious, and ruthless. The rat race which developed
alienated many, and Mishra selects Rousseau, the famous Western thinker, to illustrate
the way that such a new society could make one of its own feel left behind, or obsolete.
Mishra uses very specific phrases to allow the reader to feel the parallel situation
occurring in both the eighteenth century and today: “It isn’t just that the strong exploit
the weak,” he says, “the powerless themselves are prone to enviously imitate the
powerful” (96). The wording used by the author could have come from the mouths of
men and women today, though the author himself was speaking of the past. The same
anger and resentment is applicable, and the author’s language encapsulates the
sentiment timelessly.

In another way, the author uses the figure of Rousseau as a typology: Rousseau is an
‘everyman’ of a period of commercial growth and globalization. He is both an
emasculated, unemployed European, fearing the effects of immigration and
multiculturalism, and an angry, resentful Muslim, to whom the call of ISIS appeals in his
wish to feel powerful within his own cultural context. Regarding the latter ‘type,’ Mishra
is fascinated by the way in which a Western philosopher, Rousseau, is hailed by many
Westerners for his ideas, yet Rousseau’s own conjectures about a hypothetical modern-
day Sparta sound eerily similar to ISIS’s proclamations about the Caliphate: “He used it
to attack cosmopolitan elites who presented themselves as the worldwide nemesis of
religious prejudice and superstition and designers of rational society” (115). The author
says, as preposterous as it sounds to many, the ‘Western’ Rousseau’s Sparta was “as

13
historically grounded – and idealized” (115) as the ‘Eastern’ ISIS Caliphate. In this way,
not only does Mishra use Rousseau’s writing to provide examples of counter-current
thought in the eighteenth century which condemned the same mainstream trends which
many condemn today, but he also discounts the idea that Westerners have always been
the proponents and beneficiaries of the modern industrial age while it was only
Easterners who rejected it or had to ‘catch up.’

One thing Mishra begins to do in “Loving Oneself Through Others” is using intentionally
gendered language to highlight the role which traditional ideas of masculinity play in the
rejection of the status quo arising in the modern industrial era. For example, he
describes the way in which women were beginning to gain equality in the late
eighteenth century in at least some realms of social life, which greatly disrupted
previously-held norms of the dominant gender, which was male. He says, “The rapid
overturning of these entrenched prejudices in our time is one major source of male rage
and hysteria today” (114). He compares the past to the present and sees similarities in
the way in which males react – often violently and with indignation – to changing
dynamics which give women greater power. Even when describing Rousseau, the
author sees him less as a typology of humans as he does a typology of a kind of man
“who feels himself, despite his obvious success, to be at the bottom of the social
pyramid, and knows that he can never fit into the existing order” (118). In many ways,
masculinity and emasculation are two factors which feed into feelings of belonging:
either one’s masculinity is intact in society, meaning one has power and respect and
feels sure of one’s self, or one is emasculated and thus inferior, humiliated, unable to
reach the heights that others reach. Feelings of emasculation can be projected onto
national levels, transcending normal political categories and “intellectual vocabularies of
left and right to outline the basic psychological outlook of those who perceive
themselves as abandoned or pushed behind” (119).

Vocabulary
atheism, libertinism, omnipotence, pathology, emulation, xenophobe, ardent, bastardize,
schema, contingency, annex, hagiography, connoisseur

14
Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism
and Revolution
Summary
“Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism and Revolution” is the fourth chapter of Age of
Anger. In it, Mishra once more introduces the “vision of the ‘human project’” (122) of
modernization and development which took a hold of the world in the late eighteenth
century, reminding the reader that newly-decolonized states struggled with ‘catching up’
to the West while many intellectuals questioned the validity of the argument that
modernization along the lines of European and American ideals was necessarily
optimal. Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet, and Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Islamist, are
among the diverse thinkers of the decolonized world who railed against the Western
model of development. By the 1970s, many countries designated as ‘Third World’
countries were showing signs that Western prescriptions for economic development and
democratic development were not working according to plan.

In fact, writers such as the Iranian Jalal Al-e-Ahmad and the Moroccan Driss Chraïbi
frequently depicted scenes of psychic damage in the individual of the post-colonial
world. Later, 9/11 brought the West’s attention to the fact that not everyone adored their
idea of modernity: unfortunately, it also raised the idea in many minds that Islam
specifically was holding countries back from the liberal ideals of the West. Islam was
made an enemy of the United States in the War on Terror, which ironically produced an
inadvertent war on ideals such as freedom of speech, which had been products of the
so-called ‘Western’ Enlightenment. Mishra then says that “As the carnage of the Middle
East reaches American and European cities, citizens are ushered by politicians and the
media into collective grieving and commemorations of the moral and cultural superiority
of their nation and civilization” (132).

In the ‘East’ so often put at odds with the ‘West’ by mainstream Western thought, “long-
bearded activists and thinkers speaking of Islam” (136) arose in response to the failed
nation-building processes happening the world over, pushed forward by state leaders’
desires to emulate the cosmopolitan West. Theories of a clash of civilizations arose,
pitting one against the other, even as leaders in Turkey, India, China, and more, made
large changes to their nations and patched over elements of their culture which they
found to be backwards. Ataturk, first leader of Turkey, is presented as an example of a
leader eliminating religious elements, traditional clothing, and other things which he
thought held Turkey back from its potential as a modern nation. Nonetheless, the “new
nation states failed to be a tabula rasa, despite the systematic destruction, as in Turkey,
of the past” (142). The author explains this failure as a result of the “cultural makeover
forced upon socially conservative masses” which “aggravated a widely felt sense of
exclusion and injury” (143).

15
The wide gap between the tiny governing elite and the majority of poorer people led to a
generation of Islamists rebelling against their societies. Yet, this phenomenon was not
unique to Islam, for Russians too felt this disconnect and became just as disaffected.
“We belong neither to the West nor to the East, and we possess the traditions of
neither,” (147) wrote the Russian Chaadaev. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was convinced, similarly,
that the desire to be of the West, while being Iranian and of the East, was damaging to
Iranian culture and even to its economy. For him, and for many others, politicized Islam
seemed to provide an indigenous answer to Western models of life.

Mishra proceeds to outline the Islamic Revolution of the 1970s and uses Khomeini, the
man who initiated the revolution against the pro-Western Shah of Iran, as an example of
rejection of Westernization. The positive reception of Khomeini by so many Iranians,
and some Western thinkers too, showed a growing discontent with the status quo. Yet,
paradoxically, “Khomeinism was always a hybrid: the beneficiary of an ideological
account of Islamic tradition, which borrowed from modern idioms and used secular
concepts” (161).

Mishra concludes this chapter by reiterating his earlier point that “The key to mimic
man’s behaviour lies not in any clash of opposed civilizations, but, on the contrary, in
irresistible mimetic desire: the logic of fascination, emulation and righteous self-
assertion that binds the rivals inseparably” (165).

Analysis
A significant and new point of analysis in “Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism and
Revolution” is the identity crisis arising from attempts at modernization in non-Western
countries, elaborated through Mishra’s comparisons between Russian and Muslim
thinkers. First, the author returns to the subject of Rousseau and his fears of the new
Western liberal modernization process. “In ‘The Social Contract,’” Mishra reminds the
reader, “Rousseau warned that Peter the Great, in trying to turn his Russian subjects
into Englishmen and Frenchmen, exposed them to intellectual confusion and spiritual
emptiness” (144). Later Russian thinkers, seeing the political elite accept Western
European domination of norms and customs, felt this very same spiritual confusion.
Writers like Chaadaev expressed an “eloquent self-pity, which shook up Pushkin as well
as Gogol and Tolstoy, inaugurated the Russian elite’s exploration of the peculiar
psychology of the ‘superfluous’ man in a semi-Westernized society” (147). Semi-
Westernization, or the adoption of certain Western customs and values in a robotic
fashion in societies where such things were not indigenous, later tormented individuals
all across the non-Western parts of the world. Muslim writers like Driss Chraïbi and
Jamal Al-e-Ahmad expressed the same longing for indigenous culture and identity and
the same torment when they found their societies instead mimicking the West. The
author successfully demonstrates the widespread identity crisis which affected Russians
and Muslims alike, whom the author relies on heavily for examples.

One idea which the author aims to dispel is that of the superiority of the Western model
of a liberal, democratic society run and upheld by rational, secular men. The author

16
previously works to show that this model was rarely if ever attainable to newly-emerging
states in the post-colonial system who felt they had to ‘catch up,’ yet in this chapter of
Age of Anger he also aims to show why the Western model itself was inherently flawed.
The process by which the West had achieved the state of superiority it felt itself to claim
was, in fact, “calamitously uneven, fuelled by a rush of demagogic politics, ethnic
cleansing and total wars” (142). Many times, the sort of New Man and New Society the
West claimed to be a proponent of was the product of a series of false assumptions
regarding racial and other kinds of classifications. “Pseudo-sciences, such as
phrenology and eugenics, were respectable in Britain and America as well as in late-
coming nations,” (139) according to Mishra, and these pseudo-sciences fed into a
model of modernization founded not on fact but on various biases. According to this
Western model, “the old and the unfit, it was widely felt, had to be weeded out in
projects of rapid-fire self-empowerment,” (139) which was the kind of rhetoric non-
Western leaders took to heart just as it was the kind Western demagogues like Hitler
used to fuel their own fantasies of modernity. There were a great number of issues with
the ideal of modernity which the West proclaimed and which non-Westerners sought to
follow, therefore it is no great surprise that applications of the model often had
disastrous results.

Mishra’s frequent references to the same authors and their work is convenient to the
reader in that it familiarizes them with a set of key understandings of each author’s
intent in the work, and its relationship with what was happening in the world at the time.
In this chapter, some of the authors mentioned are, unlike in previous chapters, not
protestors against modernity’s effects but rather proponents of it and of the West. For
example, Mishra writes that V.S Naipaul contrasted “Islam’s obsession with ideological
purity to the generous ‘universal civilization’ of the West based on the pursuit of
individual happiness” (136). Similarly, Bernard Lewis viewed with condescending
pleasure the progress made by Turkey in 1950, “lionizing Atatürk and upholding the
latter’s enlightened despotism as a great success and model for other Muslim countries”
(136). Samuel Huntington, another writer, praised the Shah of Iran’s pro-Western stance
and hailed him a “modernizing monarch” (135). Therefore, Mishra intentionally
introduces writers in the post-colonial era who felt themselves to be witnessing great
strides of progress in non-Western places. This fourth chapter of Age of Anger includes
a wide range of quotes from a diverse group of writers and thinkers who, writing at the
same time, felt extremely differently about the events occurring around them.

Vocabulary
mimetic, denunciation, approximation, stigmatize, advent, theocracy, contemptuous,
inaugurate, gallows, nascent, vanguard, ideologue, disquisition

17
Regaining My Religion (Part I:
Nationalism Unbound - Part II: Messianic
Visions)
Summary
“Regaining My Religon” is the fifth chapter of Age of Anger, divided into two parts. Part I,
“Nationalism Unbound” and Part II, “Messianic Visions.”

In “Nationalism Unbound,” Mishra begins by providing examples of elites around the

world, such as in Russia, China, or India, who, “struggling with projects of national
emulation also contend that they are uniquely gifted, accomplished and superior,
morally and spiritually, to the West” (170). Today, he goes on to say, “the world of mutual
tolerance envisaged by cosmopolitan elites from the Enlightenment onwards exists
within a few metropolises and university campuses; and even these rarefied spaces are
shrinking” (174).

Mishra outlines the history of the first nationalists of Europe, the Germans. German
Romantics were a generation of thinkers who rejected the ‘Zivilisation’ (civilization) of
what they saw as a shallow, decadent, individualistic France and instead sought ‘Kultur’
(culture), their own native spiritual nurturing of the German soul. The German ‘Volk,’ a
word meaning the German nation, became an idea prominent in intellectual circles, and
in part promoted fiercely by Herder. He sought national symbols and achievements in
literature, cuisine, etc. Mishra writes, “He claimed that each of the world’s many nations
has a particular character, expressed diversely in its language, literature, religion,
traditions, values, institutions and laws, and that history was a process of national self-
fulfillment” (181). Herder himself had visited France and been disillusioned by the
amoral environment he found there, and later his disciple, Goethe, would echo his
mentor’s sentiments with similar praise of the German people over all others. Herder
rejected Enlightenment principles of rationalism and “argued that the histories of nations
operated according to their own principles and could not be judged by the standards of
the Enlightenment” (186).

Germans, towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century,
had seen significant political changes. The author writes that their humiliation
occupation by Napoleon fueled the already-existing nationalism and desire for
redemption for the ‘Volk,’ while the Terror of the French Revolution further disillusioned
those Germans who had admired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
Another German thinker, Schiller, felt that “the Enlightenment’s ideology had evolved
into the terror of reason, destroying old institutions but also the spiritual integrity of
human beings” (193). All the while, Germans turned to national myth-seeking and
-making to strengthen the ‘Volk’ and find spiritual contentment in the idea of a united
German nation, which existed as fragmented pieces of a state until decades into the

18
nineteenth century. Fichte, a German intellectual, in effect secularized the idea of
nationalism by transforming religious loyalties into national ones.

When Napoleon was defeated, German hopes for unity remained frustratingly
unfulfilled, while elsewhere in the world other forms of nationalism were rising, in Latin
America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. The author briefly explains how the ‘cult of
the nation’ grew among insecure males, and yet how paradoxically, a cult of nostalgic
Napoleon-worshippers arose at almost the exact same time, signifying to many non-
Western critics like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy the arrival of true amoralism in the West.
Germany, once unified in the late nineteenth century, found itself oddly enough
disconnected from its ‘glorious’ old traditions, as material wealth increased and identity
confusion pervaded. Jews then became an easy scapegoat, as seemingly rootless
peoples who conveniently differed from the secretly self-doubting Germans. “Self-hatred
expanded into hatred of the ‘other’: the bourgeois in the mirror,” (214) Mishra writes.
The author concludes the first part of this fifth chapter like this: “The revolt of German
intellectuals against French culture and domination with some help from Ossian –
cultural nationalism crystallized the desperate ambitions, drives, fantasies and
confusions of generations of educated young men everywhere” (224).

In Part II, “Messianic Visions,” Mishra writes of Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish nationalist
poet, whose “nationalist cult of sacrifice and martyrdom” (227) serves as an example of
later groups following ‘men of letters’ instead of politicians. These writers “flourished at a
time when literary exiles created peoples and nations in an atmosphere of heady
freedom – in flagrant disregard of geographical facts and territorial boundaries – and
entrusted them with holy missions” (227). Mickiewicz’s nationalism was not uniquely
Polish or Christian, rather it mirrored similar feelings around the world. The author writes
that “All those who felt left behind by the Atlantic West’s economic and political progress
could imagine themselves to be the chosen people” (228). He provides Mazzini, leader
of the nineteenth-century Italian Risorgimento – a movement seeking the political
unification of Italy – as one such example. Mazzini’s ‘Young Italy,’ as he called his
imagined nation, should become united, identify with God once more through the
principle of a national sovereign, breeding a militant faith in his own vision of Italy. He
called upon myths and revisionist histories of the glory of the Roman Empire to illustrate
his nation’s superior skills.

However, once the unification of Italy took place, it turned out that the “nation achieved
after manifold battles with foreign occupiers had degenerated into political corruption;
the great disappointment intensified the messianic tendencies of all those who followed
in Mazzini’s wake” (234). Messianic supremacism still reigned supreme, yet the country
was “stuck in a limbo of development” (236). Mishra points out that alongside Italy, the
British Empire was hell-bent on its own nation-building colonial project, as was France,
and Germany, too. Ultra-nationalism and imperialism therefore became the order of the
day, especially as violence began to take on new meanings in relation to nationalism.
Nietzsche’s idea of the superman, the man who could overcome his own personality in
order to “scorn ordinary mortals and their conventional morality” (239) had a profound
impact on ultra-nationalists and demagogues. Parliamentary democracy was losing its
appeal as citizens saw that it had not helped them better their well-being, while Social

19
Darwinism rose as an idea alongside Nietzsche’s superman, advocating for a violent
struggle for existence in an unfair world.

Nietszche managed to capture the “’falsity and the imbalances’ of nineteenth-century

civilization,” (244) according to Lu Xun, a Chinese modern writer. He turned away from
“sterile reason to life-sustaining myth, from moral notions of good and evil, truth and
falsehood, to aesthetic values of creativity, vitality and heroism,” (244) and, alongside
Herbert Spencer, a British thinker, contributed to the concept of the self-made man.
Spencer focused heavily on manliness, as did French thinkers like Arthur de Gobineau,
Russians like Maxim Gorky, and many more. Hindu, Chinese, Jewish, and Islamic
modernists read widely, and demagogues of the twentieth century fully embraced the
‘New Man’ which was in the process of ‘being made.’ Mishra writes later that “the
emerging New Man, theorized by Nietzsche and Sorel, and empowered by technology,
saw violence as an existential experience – an end in itself, and perpetually renewable”
(253).

Mazzini’s ideas of unification appealed to many non-Europeans for obvious reasons in

the face of continued imperialism, inspiring many from Jamal al-din al-Afghani, “the first
ideologist of political Islam,” (257) to Gavrilo Princip, a member of the ‘Young Bosnia’
group who assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914. The author turns to the
question of Indian exceptionalism next, examining Savarkar, the chief theorizer of
Hindutva, who had been educated in the West and who, through myth-making and
nationalism, attempted to theorize about the New Hindu man, claiming that Hindus had
become too effeminate and inferior. The conclusion of the author’s in-depth look at
Savarkar is that “Savarkar, the archetypal mimic man, expressed early the aggressive
desires of an educated upper-caste minority trying to secure an exalted place for itself in
a fast-changing world” (269).

“The postcolonial world since the mid-twentieth century has experienced multiple
insurgencies by people who felt cut off from their share of power and privilege: Tamils in
Sri Lanka, Kashmiris and Nagas in India, Muslims in the Philippines,” (275) writes the
author. Ultra-nationalists and the uprisings they lead demonstrate that the sovereign
power of the state is unable to restrain these groups any longer, creating the “crisis of a
flailing universal – the nation state” (277). Finally, the author concludes this chapter by
stating that “nationalism is, more than ever before, a mystification, if not a dangerous
fraud with its promise of making a country ‘great again’ and its demonization of the
‘other’; it conceals the real conditions of existence, and the true origins of suffering”
(279).

Analysis
“Regaining My Religion,” made up of Part I, “Nationalism Unbound” and Part II,
“Messianic Visions,” is the longest chapter of Pankaj Mishra’s Age of Anger, delving
deeper into the rise of militant nationalism which still plagues the world today.

20
The author draws almost exclusively upon literary and philosophical writings to illustrate
the origins of certain movements. In doing so, he wisely demonstrates that many of the
ideas fueling nationalism and violence today are not historical truths, neither are they
inevitable trends. Rather, the leaders of such movements, such as Modi in India,
according to the author, are either consciously or unconsciously adopting the
terminology and ideas of thinkers who were mortal and fallible men, just like them. If
one takes the highly controversial Nietzschean idea of the ‘superman’ -- a man who,
“authorized by his successful self-overcoming personality to scorn ordinary mortals and
their conventional morality,” (239) -- one can clearly see the potential for violence
enshrined in such a concept. A ‘superman’ who feels himself better than his fellow men
and whose superiority justifies his rejection of conventional morality is a figure who
must, following that logic, lead others and make sacrifices few others would make. It is
easy to see the seeds of Nietzsche’s idea in Adolf Hitler’s actions in the mid-twentieth
century, or in Savarkar’s attempts to create a Hindu Indian ‘superman.’ By emphasizing
the fact that such contemptible movements draw inspiration from the work of man – and
not a ‘superman’ – Mishra is able to point out the irony in the situation: ordinary, mortal,
and often insecure men are the very people whose theories of power and violence took
hold of the minds of their successors. As such, the fallibility of the ideas is evident as
well as the fallibility of the men who adhere to them.

Mishra uses the phrase ‘regaining my religion’ in the title of this chapter in order to show
the troubling effects of the void which the Enlightenment’s rejection of religion left
behind it. As Voltaire and his contemporaries embraced rationalism, science – or often
pseudo-science – and other, more ‘modern’ forms of thought and principle instead of
one centered exclusively on the will of God, many found themselves suddenly without a
coherent system to follow. A void of faith was created: what could nineteenth-century
and early twentieth-century humans cling to as the guiding principle of their existence?
The author argues, indirectly, that religious devotion to God was replaced by a sort of
religious devotion to one’s people, or nation. The idealized ‘nation’ led to other
explorations on the individual’s role in its creation and its superiority. Nietzsche, who
was a member of this latter generation of thinkers turning away from God, went a step
further from the embrace of simple rationalism: “He seemed to be turning away from
sterile reason to life-sustaining myth, from moral notions of good and evil, truth and
falsehood, to aesthetic values of creativity, vitality and heroism,” (244) writes the author.
Many, like Nietzsche, prove the author’s point that there arose a need for something to
hold on to: whether that salvation came from a love of the homeland or a belief in the
power of the individual to surpass ordinary expectations and pressures, religious fervor
still seems an apt phrase to describe the feeling.

Heroism is a major theme in “Regaining My Religion” because it represented the

overcoming of obstacles and the triumph of man over his environment or
circumstances. As Mishra mentions throughout the book, ever since the beginning of
the industrial age there have been disaffected individuals feeling left behind the
remarkable demonstrations of ‘progress.’ More importantly, however, there have also
been disaffected and angry groups who collectively mobilized or theorized about the
causes of their misfortune. Included in this latter category are countries who suffered
from European imperial expansion, and thus it is in such countries that Mishra points

21
out the existing desire for heroism. Ironically enough, even groups in the West
experienced the desire to overcome unfair circumstances, such as the Italians wishing
to unite their country or the Germans seeking a unified homeland for their ‘Volk.’ Writers
and philosophers from all around the globe found much to theorize about, and Herbert
Spencer’s theories of the self-made man particularly resonated with global audiences.
By “defining the laws of social evolution and progress” (245) Spencer captivated many
and contributed to the growing appreciation and gruesome admiration for war as a
means of heroic demonstration.

Mishra expands upon this last point regarding heroism to explore the theme of warfare
in greater depth and link it to the concerning undercurrents of nationalism. As mentioned
earlier, war as an expression of heroism was a steadily rising concept, yet this was not
characteristic of solely impoverished or peripheral countries vying for a chance to prove
themselves. Even in England, there existed a new kind of nationalism, “fed by the
wildest rumours and the most violent appeals to hate and the animal lust of blood”
(246). In many ways, the lust for blood was a product of a fear of elimination, common
in a dog-eat-dog world. Social Darwinism posited that only the strongest peoples would
survive on Earth to continue their lineages, and figures such as Max Weber felt that it
was not important whether ones’ descendent inherited a peaceful land but rather that
they inherited the “eternal struggle to preserve and raise the quality of our national
species” (247). As such, it was either kill or be killed, both figuratively and often literally.

A desire for heroism bred a taste for warfare, while warfare was accompanied by
concerns about masculinity, according to the author. Interestingly enough, the “fixation
with manliness cut across apparent ideological barriers” (248). Stereotypes about
different nations fed into this, with Anglo-Saxon conventions and Italians, for example,
being deemed feminine. Even Mussolini, the author points out, judged his nation with
contempt and wanted to create a ‘New Italian’ who never gesticulated while speaking –
an act that was to him the opposite of masculine. Masculinity, in this chapter, is explored
not only in its physical manifestation but also its psychological manifestation. Masculine
men were supposed to have a strong sense of what they wanted and how to get it.
Interestingly, in Europe, masculinity was assigned to certain groups and not others
according to stereotypes, while in the East, the entire West was seen as being too
feminine and bourgeois. Most interestingly, in the land of the Enlightenment and
Revolution, Frenchmen were busy debating the loss of their revolutionary ideals,
succumbing instead to what Alexis de Tocqueville called a “labyrinth of petty incidents,
petty ideas, petty passions, personal viewpoints and contradictory projects” (250).
France therefore suffered from a lack of direction, will, and masculinity.

“Regaining My Religion” is an extremely lengthy, dense chapter which introduces new

themes, philosophers, and more. All of the threads of the chapter tie into the author’s
main argument concerning the origins of today’s militant nationalist movements and
terrorism: namely, that those movements did not arise in a vacuum and are a response
to historical changes which often began occurring in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries.

22
Vocabulary
contemptuously, anarchism, superfluous, transcendental, messianic, brazenly,
paternalist, revisionism, amalgam, calisthenics, tacit, caste, effete, divinized

23
Finding True Freedom and Equality: The
Heritage of Nihilism
Summary
The sixth chapter of Age of Anger begins with an in-depth analysis of the American
terrorist Timothy McVeigh’s psyche. McVeigh killed 168 people and wounded many
more by leaving a bomb in a truck beneath a building, and the author draws parallels
between this act and those committed by other terrorists from vastly different
backgrounds, including Muslim terrorists. McVeigh “presented himself as a besieged
defender of the American Constitution. He placed himself in the tradition of the small
band of patriots who wished to defend liberty and freedom from government
oppression” (282) and wrote about his thoughts on political and social repression he
saw existing in the United States. He railed against the death of the ‘American Dream,’
the poverty of many Americans, the killing done by Americans abroad, etc. The author
says that “many over-educated terrorists have made similar claims against the ‘system’”
(287) and thus McVeigh’s ideas are not unfamiliar. Rather, this extremism, existing
across the political spectrum and not tied to certain religions, has been on the rise for a
long time.

This rise was initiated in the nineteenth century. Regional causes could be linked far
and wide through circulation of “capital, commodities and labour” (291) as well as
railways, telegraph, newspapers, etc. Issues such as wealth redistribution and mass
education became transnational issues. Anarchism arose in this environment where
hatred of authority persisted, “more mindset than movement or consistent doctrine: it
offered something to everyone” (292). This is why, the author writes, McVeigh, from a
greatly different background than Osama bin Laden, could defend the latter man until
his death, finding similarities between their ideas and responses to perceived crimes
against the people of the world – in this case allegedly perpetrated by the United States.

Terrorist violence became a tactic used by groups as different as the IRA in Ireland and
Hamas in Palestine, as well as Kashmiri and Baloch insurgents in South Asia. Military
and cultural imperialism throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resulted in
“ferocious backlashes in the name of culture, custom, tradition, and God” (296) for many
decades to come, extending until today. Those employing terrorist tactics, often “nation-
builders and imperialists from the Jacobins to the regime-changers and democracy-
promoters of today have arrogated to themselves the monopoly, once reserved to God,
of creating the human world” (297).

Though much of the terrorist violence mentioned by the author comes from non-
Western groups in response to grievances they hold against the West, the West’s
response to these tactics in the form of the ‘War on Terror’ actually result in even more
violence and destruction. For example, ISIS arose when the failed state of Iraq became
unable to hold moral and ideological legitimacy following American invasion in the first

24
place. The author denounces claims that ISIS and other Islamic groups engaging in
such violence act due to elements of their religion, rather he states that these
movements prove that traditional Islam is becoming lost, rather than resurging globally,
since the terrorists in question are clearly acting against the pillars of that religion.

The author then introduces Mikhail Bakunin, an infamous Russian thinker whose “idea
of free self-development…had gone steadily mainstream in the ideologies of the
nineteenth century” (302). Bakunin hated commercial society and bourgeois liberalism,
insisting instead that “human dignity in nations and peoples manifests itself only in ‘the
instinct of freedom, in the hatred of oppression, and by the force of revolting against
everything that has the character of exploitation and domination in the world’” (303). He
was arrested and exiled for his revolutionary tendencies, while all across Europe
abortive attempts at revolution failed in 1848 and disillusioned many.

The Russians in particular, says the author, felt anguished at their country’s stagnation
in modernizing, and Bakunin, among others, felt that Russians needed to engage in that
wrath and “sweep away the autocracy and dispossess the parasitical gentry” (309).
Bakunin bequeathed to generations of anarchists and nihilists “his conviction that heroic
acts of freedom could transform the world from an authoritarian cage into an arcadia of
human freedom” (311). The author goes on to explain how the repression in Russia
bred a counterpart of “insane rebellion” (316) which eventually led to the assassination
of the Tsar and his family, representative of a wave of terrorism and revolution
expanding across the globe. Mishra concludes this chapter by stating that “Bakunin, one
of the socially derailed and self-exiled figures of the nineteenth century, saw further than
his contemporaries: to the waning of developmentalist and collectivist ideologies, a
broader scope for the individual will to power, an existential politics and ever-drastic and
coldly lucid ways of making or transcending history” (324).

Analysis
“Finding True Freedom and Equality: The Heritage of Nihilism” is the sixth and
penultimate chapter of Age of Anger. It builds upon the chronological history of ideas of
the past few chapters, leading up to the end of the nineteenth century.

The history of various ideas is punctuated by anecdotes and facts about the present day
which pertain to them. This is done in order to greater prove the timeless quality of the
ideas in question and of certain elements of human nature. For example, when
addressing the fact that Nechaev, a ‘pupil’ of Bakunin’s, had angered the latter through
his “fanaticism bordering on mysticism,” (314) the author takes the opportunity to
introduce the reader to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, another pupil who exceeded his
teacher’s expectations and became more zealous than intended in his radical ideas.
Zarqawi’s teacher, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, proclaimed his former pupil to be
ignorant of Islam, which was the very subject in which the man had been radicalized in.
Mishra, in consecutively comparing both the historical and the modern, successfully
demonstrates that human beings act similarly across the centuries and across

25
ideologies, for the fanaticism this book focuses on is characterized by the strength of
the emotion rather than by the kind of emotion it stems from.

To expand on this last point, whether nationalism, religion, or another ideology like
communism is in question, Mishra proves that it is the degree to which fanaticism in any
one of these arenas is felt that determines its destructiveness or power. In essence, the
author claims that extremism is at fault for the great number of global crises faced
today, especially in regard to terrorism and violence. Extremism is, according to the
author, usually a response to some kind of oppression or repression: the former in the
case of European colonialism, for example, and the latter in the case of autocratic state
systems. The extreme lengths to which people are willing to go in order to further their
interests depends on the extremity of their perceived suffering. As Mishra writes, “It is
true that rigidly autocratic Russia had developed a degree of repression whose
counterpart was insane rebellion” (316). The aforementioned quote is significant not in
the specifics of Russian autocracy but rather in the statement implied: the harder the
oppression is felt – or imagined – the more the population will react. The insanity stems
from the sudden and fanatical release of emotion into an act, which may be
demonstrated by the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family at the
beginning of the twentieth century, which truly shocked the entire world.

Interestingly, Mishra’s continuous references to authors of literature and the way in

which their works reflect prevailing sentiments and movements of the times are
extremely pertinent in this chapter. These references take on a new significance,
demonstrating how real events can influence literature and how literature can influence
real events, too. Mishra explains that Émile Zola, among many others, wrote a book in
which a Russian anarchist blows up a mine. This book, called “Germinal,” inspired a
man named Émile Henry who later bombed a mining company and café in Paris. Thus,
literature, in attempting to depict social phenomena, is capable of inciting violence,
inspiring many across ideological spectrums, or relaying powerful political messages.
This chapter is the first time in which the role of literature in engendering a movement is
explicitly explored.

In this chapter, Mishra also explicitly refers to the role of technology in the circulation of
ideas because, as time goes on, newer forms of technology greatly alter the way in
which information is received or affect whether it is received at all. There is a particularly
illuminating passage in which the transnational nature of social and political issues
began to become apparent: “Errico Malatesta, the Italian disciple of Bakunin, joined
Egyptian nationalists in their revolt against British imperialists in 1882. Syrian
immigrants exposed to anarchist ideas in Brazil transmitted them to readers of the major
Arabic magazines, al-Muqtataf and al-Hilāl” (291-292). Media such as newspapers and
periodicals helped ideas flow just as much as modern infrastructure did, and the huge
movements of people on various forms of transportation further created a truly
globalized world. Immigration was key: “Italy alone,” says Mishra, “sent out an estimated
fourteen million labourers between 1870 and 1914,” (291) thus it is no wonder that
radicalism took on an international appearance and significance during the fin de siècle
period.

26
Vocabulary
developmentalist, nomadic, anarchist, grievance, partisan, adherent, unquenchable,
conspirator, virile, decadence, sluggish

27
Epilogue: Finding Reality
Summary
The final chapter of Age of Anger aptly summarizes the main problems in today’s world
and alludes once more to the historical progression of events and ideas which led to
them. The space “between serene elites and mute masses” (326) is precisely where all
modern militants have come from and is the same space articulated by philosophers
and writers such as Alexander Herzen and Rousseau, whom the author has quoted
extensively. This space today is characterized by “the stark extremes of political
inflexibility and anarchic revolt, insuperable backwardness and a gaudy cult of progress”
(327).

The author proceeds to explain how intellectuals, by embodying a belief in continuous

progress towards some more modern future, have throughout history actually
unleashed unexpected consequences. Now, “billions of the world’s poorest are locked
into a Social Darwinist nightmare” (332) and ‘ressentiment’ exists more than ever
before, especially in countries with high populations of unemployable youths.

Next, Mishra recounts the ways in which technology has changed human interactions
and points out that “in his prescient critique of the neo-liberal notion of individual
freedom, Rousseau had argued that human beings live neither for themselves nor for
their country in a commercial society where social value is modelled on monetary value;
they live for the satisfaction of their vanity, or amour propre” (340). Mishra sees modern
selfie culture as a further expression of ‘amour proper’ and sees other aspects of social
media as responsible for exposing to others the state of affairs around the world. In that
way, inequalities are exposed, material desire inflated, and “considerably more people…
know what is owed to them. Individual and national capabilities have been greatly
enlarged by technology” (343).

Finally, Mishra states that “there is no such thing as a level playing field” (345) as
inequalities the world over set people at odds with each other while viewing their
respective political elites as enemies instead of protectors. He demonstrates how
groups like ISIS can appeal to the frustrated radicals who want to express their rage
through destruction, and even sees a similar trend in supporters of Donald Trump.
Returning to the subject of radical Islam, Mishra states that radical Islamists offer
“collective identity and self-aggrandizement to isolated and fearful individuals” (349)
who exist in great numbers in today’s world. The race for modernity has left many
resentful of the elite who benefit from the system they themselves have arranged and
whose ideas of superiority have incurred brutal results in other parts of the world. “The
contradictions and costs of a minority’s progress,” says Mishra, “long suppressed by
historical revisionism, blustery denial and aggressive equivocation, have become visible
on a planetary scale” (349).

28
Analysis
The seventh and final chapter of Age of Anger, titled “Epilogue: Finding Reality,” is the
least academic and most accessible section of the book because it refers less to ideas
and theories and more to recent events and realities, drawing the reader away from an
analysis of intellectual movements and towards a confrontation with the world they live
in today.

By using extremely vivid imagery and intense, almost belligerent language, the author
succeeds in portraying the brutality and harshness of current realities. For example,
while discussing the frustration felt by populations containing a high percentage of
educated young men unable to find work, Mishra inserts this eloquent and striking
sentence: “The number of superfluous young people condemned to the anteroom of the
modern world, an expanded Calais in its squalor and hopelessness, has grown
exponentially in recent decades, especially in the youthful societies of Asia and Africa”
(334). The imagery contained in the words ‘anteroom’ and ‘squalor’ as well as the
reference to Calais, a notoriously chaotic and dismal refugee camp, serve to highlight
the author’s point. Similarly, the author selects carefully his adjectives and images in the
following excerpt: global capitalism has “exposed the severe disparities of income and
opportunities, and left many to desperately improvise jaunty masks for themselves in
the social jungle” (341). The use of the word ‘jungle’ is what truly drives home the idea
that humans live in a self-help – or dog-eat-dog – world in which each must look out for
themselves.

Mishra employs an almost mocking tone in this chapter, attempting to force Western
readers to confront the lies and myths which have helped them build up their self-
assurance in the world system which was built specifically with them in mind. For
example, he writes, “We can of course cling tight to our comforting metaphysical
dualisms and continue to insist on the rationality of liberal democracy vis-à-vis against
‘Islamic irrationalism’ while waging infinite wars abroad and assaulting civil liberties at
home” (348). Clearly, Mishra’s tone indicates that he finds much to complain of and
much to condemn in the way the West has dealt with consequences of its own actions.
Yet, this is not the sole example of such a snide remark. He also states, more in a more
explicitly condemnatory manner, that “in Europe and America, a common and effective
response among reigning elites to unravelling national narratives and loss of legitimacy
is fear-mongering against minorities and immigrants – an insidious campaign that
continuously feeds off the alienation and hostility it provokes” (346). This chapter,
alongside the prologue, is used as a space in which the author expresses his own
personal thoughts, therefore it is no wonder that it contains more biting sarcasm and
reprimands than any other chapter in the book. Whether or not this aspect of the book
appeals to all readers is a different matter, however this may be why the author chose to
write the majority of the book in a purely ‘explanatory’ matter.

Whereas he most often explains the history of certain ideas and outlines how they
influenced historical and modern events or radical thinkers, in this chapter he takes a
more personal stance. Though it contains a lot of repetition, summarizing and

29
rephrasing previously-mentioned concepts and ideas, this chapter aptly concludes the
book by pointing out the great challenge which lies ahead. To Mishra, the challenge will
be to stem the tide of ‘ressentiment’ which has resurfaced the world over in response to
very real inequalities and oppressive environments. The conclusion of the book is that
confronting this challenge is extremely necessary, no matter how difficult it may seem or
who is most responsible.

Vocabulary
chasm, blustery, equivocation, unmitigated, fealty, rectitude, caliph, extol, insidious,
turbulence, rebuttal, misogynist, serfdom

30
Important People
Rousseau
Rousseau was a philosopher and writer of the eighteenth century who denounced the
emergence of modern commercial society and all it entailed, including the shift towards
individualism instead of collectivism and the greater value placed on material wealth. He
was well-known yet withdrawn from elite circles in Europe, articulating the sense of
disconnect which many would later relate to when faced with a society whose values
seem out of place.

Rousseau idealized ancient societies, theorizing about a 'new' Sparta of closed borders
and identity, built upon the collective interest, inclusive to all its own members but highly
averse to foreign influence and intrusion. Mishra writes of Rousseau as being one of the
first philosophers to express the alienating feeling arising from commercial
industrialization, and his work fed into later militant nationalist theories.

Voltaire
Voltaire was a philosopher and writer of the eighteenth century, and an intellectual rival
to Rousseau. The two disagreed vehemently over many things, with Voltaire being the
voice of the age which Rousseau despised: Voltaire helped create the Enlightenment
ideals we hear of today, such as the rejection of the Church in affairs of the State, the
promotion of social mobility and class mobility, the increase in material wealth as a sign
of a society's progress, and other values which coincide with today's Western liberal
modes of thinking. Voltaire corresponded with monarchs of Europe, encouraging them
to modernize their own 'backwards' populations to the same standard which France was
supposedly enjoying, and he was one of the most prominent 'philosophes' of the salon
era.

Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian philosopher and theorist of individual freedom. He saw
the apex of individual freedom as a severance of ties with the status quo social order
and with all the world, therefore the abandonment of laws and morality were a
manifestation of true freedom. Violence, in the destruction and rejection of the previous
order, was sometimes necessary, according to Bakunin. Mishra states that Bakunin was
highly influential to a generation of anarchists and nihilists at the end of the nineteenth
century, and describes him as "the forebear of today's leaderless militants" (78).

31
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky was a Russian author whose works explored what Mishra calls 'podvig,' a
kind of spiritual exploit which examines how disillusioned and disaffected individuals act
after being confronted with reality in such a way that their lofty ideals are crushed.
Dostoyevsky's characters represented a whole generation of Russians who viewed their
country's journey towards 'modernity' with skepticism, finding instead that rational
behavior is less freeing than the pure enjoyment of irrational behavior and the rejection
of society's expectations.

Timothy McVeigh
McVeigh was an American terrorist who murdered 168 people in 1995. He was a
veteran of the First Gulf War and suffered from a feeling of resentment against the U.S.
government for a variety of reasons. He was angry that the American Dream was
ending, with other ethnicities entering the picture and with white males losing their
dignified place of privilege in the U.S., thus he became an anti-government militant,
though he was in no way alone in the thoughts which motivated him to commit the
murders. McVeigh felt that people like Osama bin Laden were also justified in attacking
the U.S. government because their grievances were, in fact, similar to his own.

Savarkar
Savarkar was an ideologue of Hindu nationalism and a rival of Ghandi's, fully entranced
by Mazzini's theorizing on nationalism and personal heroism. He creates an ideology of
hatred, revenge, and superiority around Hindu nationalism, building up narratives of
Muslims terrorizing Hindus throughout history in order to breed enmity between the
groups. Savarkar was an example of a militant nationalist in the twentieth century who
was inspired by the writings of nineteenth and eighteenth century theorists.

Nietzsche
Nietzsche was a nineteenth century philosopher who articulated the idea of nihilism and
spoke in depth about the 'men of ressentiment' who were effectively on the sidelines of
society and bursting with rage and masculine ideals of revenge. His idea of the
'superman,' or the man who was above ordinary moral conventions because of an
extraordinary will to power and his overcoming of the 'self.' Nietzsche's commentary on
his contemporaries' writings and musings also provide insight into the German
perspective of nineteenth century nationalism in Europe.

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Giuseppe Mazzini
Mazzini was an Italian nationalist of the nineteenth century, intent on unifying Italy and
creating a popular theocracy of sorts. Mishra writes that "Mazzini hoped through sheer
will and rhetoric to unite a hopelessly fragmented and geographically scattered country
and raise it to a summit of cultural and political excellence” (245). He rejected the
bourgeois values and individualism which he felt arose with the French Revolution and
wanted to create more 'virtuous' citizens who felt a greater collective identification with
the nation and with their people.

Alexander Herzen
Herzen was yet another Russian thinker of the nineteenth century who detested the
march towards progress which he saw all of Europe, and, in imitation, the rest of the
world, embarking on. He felt that such an ideal would produce nothing but violence and
destruction, products of racial hatred and competition. He was greatly disillusioned with
the world after the 1848 revolutions across Europe failed, and denounced the Western
bourgeois preoccupations with the self and with private property.

Donald Trump
Though Donald Trump is not mentioned often in the book, the author does refer to him,
or rather to his popularity, as the culmination of the historical processes discussed in the
book. Donald Trump, elected President of the United States in 2016, is an example of a
demagogue whose rhetoric espousing national safety, rejection of globalization and
open markets, and the return to privileging Americans over other nations, speaks
directly to the disaffected people in the U.S. who feel left behind or hurt by the
processes of global liberal market capitalism and the effects of pluralism in their society.
Mishra sees this trend as being extremely concerning, and points to the negative effects
of such nationalism.

33
Objects/Places
Italy
Italy is a significant location in Age of Anger because it was the site of and birthplace of
many nationalist movements over the past few centuries. For example, D'Annunzio,
Mazzini, and many more are mentioned by Mishra as Italian nationalists, each with their
own grievances against the 'old orders' and 'old elites' and each with their own visions
for how to create change. With Mazzini's ideas of self-empowerment, heroism, and
national unification came a great, sweeping effort to unify Italy, one which had to fail
before it could succeed decades later. The country is therefore a good example of a
place in which 'ressentiment' and disillusionment existed alongside ideals of heroism
and militant nationalist salvation.

The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment period took place in the eighteenth century, originating in France,
and was characterized by the blossoming of intellectual freedom and expression.
Notable intellectuals of the era included Voltaire and Rousseau, and the period saw old
values and social mores erased by the intellectuals' espousal of rational thought, liberty,
modernization, and science. Another key trend emerging from the Enlightenment period
was the diminishing role of religion in intellectual development and theory. Instead, man
was said to be in control of his own destiny, which could be changed by the
development of the arts and sciences.

Russia
Russia is a significant location mentioned often by Mishra, not only because of the great
number of Russian authors whom Mishra cites but also due to the fact that Russia's
experience as a 'non-Western' country in Europe demonstrates many important aspects
of the modernization project of European intellectuals. For example, Mishra writes that
Russian intellectuals suffered greatly at the thought that their country was 'behind' the
rest of Europe in terms of modern industrial technology as well as in terms of social
norms, yet there were also many Russian thinkers who resented the role which Western
philosophers played in trying to push Russia to mimic the West.

Revolutions of 1848
1848 was a year in which numerous revolutions broke out across Europe, and
subsequently failed. Nationalist Italians had embarked on a nation-building enterprise,
which did not succeed, and many nationalist intellectuals experienced the crushing
disappointment of watching their ideals be shattered. Mishra writes of numerous literary

34
and historical examples of men for whom 1848 changed a great deal: it turned even
liberal-minded thinkers into cynics.

Nihilism
The "debilitating post-1848 mood" (314) was conceptualized by Nietzsche as 'nihilism,'
a state of affairs and also a condition necessary for the creation of a 'new man,' one
who would destroy the oppressive old world order and bring a new one to life. Included
in this concept was the denial of feeble morality and the embrace of a new start to
history, as well as the shattering of the idea of a purposeful universe.

Anarchism
Anarchism is a movement defined by a hatred of authority, therefore its meaning is
loose and rather malleable. Mishra describes it as more of a mindset, stating that it
offered a great many different people and groups a great many different things,
depending on their grievances and circumstances during the initial period of
globalization. It held great appeal to labouring classes, immigrants, and anti-colonial
activists across the world who wanted to fight against the elite and their Social Darwinist
theories. Much of anarchist theory can be traced back to writings by Rousseau.

War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term used to describe the U.S.-led ideological and military
campaigns against terrorism, which is most often pinned on individuals from and
countries in the Middle East. According to Mishra, the fact that terrorism is unjustifiably
viewed from an exclusively Islam-centric lens is a sign that the Western elite have lost
their ability to deal with the real problem of terrorism without alienating large groups of
people in the world. The War on Terror has justified the curtailment of civil rights in the
U.S. even while American elite proclaim countries in the Middle East to be the 'despotic'
ones. Mishra writes that the "uncodified and unbridled violence of the ‘war on terror’
ushered in the present era of absolute enmity in which the adversaries, scornful of all
compromise, seek to annihilate each other” (132).

'Superman'
'Superman' was a Nietzschean idea which influenced many nationalists such as
D'Annunzio, whom Mishra frequently mentions in his book. The 'superman' is an
“individual authorized by his successful self-overcoming personality to scorn ordinary
mortals and their conventional morality” (255). The concept entailed a will to power
which meant that the 'superman' would effectively rise above other men and surpass
them, while engaging in war or violence along the way if necessary. Maxim Gorky, too,
was a follower of Nietzsche and greatly hoped a Russian 'superman' would one day
liberate the masses of Russia.

35
'Volk'
The 'Volk' was the term used by German Romantics and nationalists in the nineteenth
century, describing “an organic national community united by a distinctive language,
ways of thought, shared traditions, and a collective memory enshrined in folklore and
fable” (). It was a theory of collective identity which incorporated national salvation and
later outlined clear distinctions between who was and was not a member of the 'Volk.'
Anti-Semitism became an inherent quality of this definition, with "cosmopolitan Jews"
(190) supposedly preventing the 'Volk' from being pure and united.

Islam
The author of Age of Anger states that his book aims to take a better look at historical
and contemporary sources of the kind of nationalism and terrorism we see today. He
attempts to remove Islam from the center of these narratives because he feels that
“those routinely evoking a worldwide clash of civilizations in which Islam is pitted against
the West, and religion against reason, are not able to explain many political, social and
environmental ills” (16). The way in which Islam has intersected with militant nationalism
and with other ideologies is, however, explored in detail and provides a different
perspective to the role in which this religion plays in international relations today.

36
Themes
Mimetic Rivalry
Mimetic rivalry is a recurring theme in Age of Anger, first introduced in “Clearing a
Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions,” which Mishra uses to explain the race to
modernize among non-Western countries, part of their efforts to ‘catch up’ to Western
dominance. Mimetic rivalry is described as a kind of inexplicable desire for something
that somebody else has. “The reason is that he desires being, something he himself
lacks and which some other person seems to possess,” says Mishra, “The subject thus
looks to that other person to inform him of what he should desire in order to acquire that
being” (77).

Clearly, the concept of mimetic rivalry is pertinent in the context of colonialism and the
way in which non-Western colonized parts of the world viewed themselves in relation to
their Western counterparts. The perception that Westerners had attained a level of
‘being’ that was characterized by rather attractive attributes -- a high level of
industrialization, commerce, greater material wealth – had taken hold of many
individuals in the non-West, spurring a desire to bring those same attributes into their
own society, by their own hands. However, the mimetic rivalry which ensued not did not
universally or equally bring new modes of life to all in the non-West, it actually
encouraged an already-present resentment of the West felt by those who sensed their
own cultures were being thrown aside in a feeble attempt at mimicry and imposed
modernity.

Mimetic rivalry is a closely related concept to appropriative mimicry, which specifies the
non-indigenous nature of the concepts being adopted by non-Western countries. In
attempting to foster a society built upon ideals of the Enlightenment, for example,
without having undergone an indigenous process by which those values supplant the
older norms previously adhered to, countries faced backlash from their own people and
identity crises on national scales ensued. The Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi wrote of
the inner turmoil this caused in Moroccans: “I’ve slammed all the doors of my past
because I’m heading towards Europe and Western civilization, and where is that
civilization then, show it to me, show me one drop of it, I’m ready to believe I’ll believe
anything. Show yourselves, you civilizers in whom your books have caused me to
believe” (137).

Masculinity
Age of Anger seems to be extremely preoccupied with men: how men feel about, react
to, or influence historical events. The reason for this preoccupation is, according to
Mishra, the fact that masculinity plays a large role in ‘ressentiment’ and the precise
catalog of emotions which engender violence and political turmoil. For example, he
states that when women began to gain equality with men in the late eighteenth century,

37
at least in some aspects of life, this disruption of long-standing norms created a wave of
“male rage and hysteria” (114) which is felt even today, as women gain even more
rights.

Therefore, emasculation, not just due to changing gender roles, plays a large part in
shaping the world order at any given moment since, for much of history, men were the
ones in power and the ones capable of fighting. The sense of emasculation was well
articulated by Rousseau, who felt social hierarchies to be powerful tools of degradation
and emasculation. Another source of historical emasculation lay in the rapid
industrialization and international trade development which resulted in new skills being
required and old jobs being threatened. Likewise, previously colonized countries were
left, upon independence, to deal with feelings of powerlessness and resentment, since
their men had been subordinate to Westerners under colonial rule.

This last example leads to another of the author’s points about emasculation: the true
danger lies not simply in their emasculation in individual contexts, but in collective
contexts, when a great multitude of men feeling aggrieved and vengeful project their
emotions onto the nation. The rhetoric of certain types of nationalism is often highly
gendered, as are most military discussions, demonstrating that violence and power are
correlated with the strength and dignity assigned to the male species by social norms.

It is evident that men lie at the heart of the global shifts and violence occurring in today’s
world, as far as the author is concerned. Yet, Mishra does not choose to explore in
greater detail how ideas of masculinity are built and shift throughout history. Instead, he
aptly draws a direct relationship between an individual or group’s feelings of insecurity
in their ‘maleness’ and their tendency to feel rejected, isolated, or vengeful.

'Ressentiment'
Nietzsche first articulated the concept of ‘ressentiment’ in his writing, stating that it
entails “a whole tremulous realm of subterranean revenge, inexhaustible and insatiable
in outbursts” (16). Mishra rediscovers the term in an effort to find the proper word to
designate the current world disorder and its origins. Therefore, to Mishra, ‘ressentiment’
is a kind of diagnosis of the violence, terrorism, political despotism, and more which
seems to be swallowing up the globe and which pervades every news outlet and social
media network.

Mishra explicitly draws links between the nineteenth century, during which the term
‘ressentiment’ was first introduced and applied to contemporary ‘convulsions’ in the
socio-political sphere, and the twenty-first century. He writes that “much in our
experience resonates with that of people in the nineteenth century. German and then
Italian nationalists called for a ‘holy war’ more than a century before the word ‘jihad’
entered common parlance, and young Europeans all through the nineteenth century
joined political crusades in remote places, resolved on liberty or death” (18). He goes on
to explain what the term actually means and what it entails in any given age: “ An
existential resentment of other people’s being, caused by an intense mix of envy and

38
sense of humiliation and powerlessness, ressentiment, as it lingers and deepens,
poisons civil society and undermines political liberty, and is presently making for a
global turn to authoritarianism and toxic forms of chauvinism” (21).

The author finds that ‘ressentiment’ is a feeling which, far from dissipating with the
passing of the centuries and the supposed higher standard of living for all people in all
parts of the world, still persists today. Though at one point it was felt by those ‘left
behind’ or those who felt that the new world order did not have a place for them, today it
is felt even more widely as more and more people are connected to each other through
social media, which can expose the vast inequalities across the globe and open
people’s eyes to the things they don’t have but desire. Therefore ‘ressentiment’ is
presented as a diagnosis, as the underlying feeling in today’s world which gives rise to
all manner of political and social upheavals.

Nationalism
Nationalism is a “mode of politics” (8) which Mishra deems dangerous, thus he attempts
to explain many theoretical and intellectual developments which, from the eighteenth
century onwards, led to a preponderant amount of nationalist movements. The kind of
nationalism most often discussed is that in which individuals identify as members of a
group based on their ethnic backgrounds, which entails a shared cultural and linguistic
identity. It is inherently discriminatory, taking as its basis the creation of an ‘us’ group in
contrast with a ‘them’ group. ‘Us’ versus ‘them’ is the logic behind many of the world’s
greatest tragedies, such as wars, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and terrorism. There
exists an enemy of the ‘nation’ which must be held at bay and subjugated to the nation’s
glory, in many nationalist narratives.

Rousseau theorized about the creation of a modern-day Sparta which included many
elements of militant nationalism, though the latter term was not used by him. It involved
a closed society, built up of individuals of the same cultural background, which was self-
sufficient, defended its own, and took care of the collective group by any means.
Rousseau was writing in the eighteenth century, when modernization was only just
beginning with the advent of industrialization, yet the nineteenth century, which brought
with it more technology, more commercial trading across continents, and more
inequality, continued to feed into the nationalist narrative like this: “In the late nineteenth
century, European and Japanese ruling classes began to respond to the damage and
disruptions of the world market by exhorting unity in the face of internal and external
threats, creating new fables of ethnic and religious solidarity, and deploying militaristic
nationalism in what they claimed was a struggle for existence” (23). Thus,
modernization, competition, and myth-making were all closely tied into the nation-
building projects which many peoples undertook, including the Germans with their idea
of the ‘Volk’ and the Italians who sought a unified Italy.

Nationalism is on the rise again today, despite the fact that nation-states today are
unlikely to have their borders redrawn. Yet, with migration playing a large role in global
politics and war, refugees and other immigrants find themselves being designated as

39
‘other,’ often in countries where they have lived for decades or where their children were
born. This phenomenon is what the author is concerned about and which he attempts to
explain throughout the book.

Modernization
Modernization is treated as a continuously evolving project in Age of Anger, with its aims
and methods changing according to the historical time period. It is, however,
characterized by an inherent ‘end goal’ which justifies the process itself and the means
by which it operates. The end quite literally is meant to justify the means which are so
often violent or destructive, as Mishra explains throughout the book.

Mishra places much of the blame for the devastating results of modernization upon the
shoulders of intellectuals. They, beginning in the eighteenth century, have attempted to
reorder the world so that man lay at the heart of his own fulfillment and development.
Thus, all of humanity was, in theory, capable of moving forward, creating more
technology and gaining more wealth, and eliminating inequalities within and between
nations. Yet, the continuous search for an elusive and intangible ‘perfect’ society has
resulted in such phenomena as appropriative mimicry, mimetic rivalry, and other trends
which saw non-Westerners alarmed and consequently charmed by Western notions of
self-determination and self-empowerment. The consequent competition which arose
across the globe had devastating results for many.

“The contradictions and costs of a minority’s progress,” says Mishra, “long suppressed
by historical revisionism, blustery denial and aggressive equivocation, have become
visible on a planetary scale” (349). This quote demonstrates the author’s own stance on
the modernization project, which is a lie – however beautiful to some – that has wreaked
havoc on minorities in particular. By defining progress according to Western liberal
notions of development and achievement, the non-West has been both alienated and
taken in by the rhetoric employed by condescending Westerners and international
organizations embedded in the West. Mishra dedicates an entire chapter, “Clearing a
Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions,” to dismantling the myth of the Western
liberal order and its origins in early modernization theory. “The belief that Anglo-
American institutions of the nation state and liberal democracy will be gradually
generalized around the world” (46) has existed for centuries and is no less harmful
today, since there is no truth to the idea that the West has universally been successful in
achieving the very values and institutions it speaks highly of. “Every society, in short, is
destined to evolve just as a handful of countries in the West sometimes did,” (47) the
author says mockingly, for he outlines in depth how Western countries themselves too
often betray the very same Enlightenment ideals which they claim give them superiority
and authority over others. The United States, in embarking upon a ‘civilizing’ mission in
the Middle East with its War on Terror, has actively curtailed civil rights within its own
borders.

40
Styles
Structure
The structure of Age of Anger is extremely simple at the macro-level and slightly more
complicated at the micro-level. At the macro-level, the book is divided into seven
chapters, each of which explores a loosely-defined historical period and its
corresponding trend in intellectual thought. The chapters follow a chronological order,
with the first and last chapters being exceptions to the general rule because they are
treated as a prologue and epilogue, respectively. However, the remaining chapters
progress smoothly from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first, making numerous
returns to the past and jumps ahead into the future all throughout the book. This is
where the structure becomes slightly more complicated.

As mentioned, within each chapter, intellectual trends and movements arising in certain
periods give the author cause to return to the past or jump ahead into the future,
depending on which would most help to illuminate the significance or consequences of
a point. This kaleidoscopic internal movement within an otherwise linear chronological
progression is not too great an obstacle, however, because the author is highly diligent
in maintaining control over the direction of his ideas.

One interesting aspect of the book’s structure is that it is not divided in any manner
between reflections on the West and reflections on the non-West. Though differences
between these two imagined communities are often highlighted by Mishra, the author is
more interested in demonstrating the vast web of interconnected ideas and people
which helped to bring about the world as it was at any given moment in time. The
artificial divisions, no matter how ideologically strong they may appear to be, between
the West and its supposedly less modernized counterpart are simply products of
historical processes to Mishra. He rejects historical inevitability at every turn of the book
and treats the globe as one.

Perspective
Age of Anger is written in the first person perspective, with the author using the word
‘we’ to indicate that he identifies with the readers of his book in the present day. The
author posits his own theory of the causes of today’s violence and political turmoil, but
most often presents his opinions implicitly rather than explicitly.

By identifying with the reader, the author allows the former to immerse themselves in
the chronological journey of ideas being presented to them in the third person. There is
a constant switching between the present-day, when ‘we’ is used, and the past, when
historical figures and literary authors are presented almost as characters whose works
and significance need to be explained in order for present events to be understood.

41
Since the book interweaves present-day anecdotes and facts with historical events and
even literary excerpts, the consequence is that the author’s personal perspective
becomes implicit rather than explicit. The book’s perspective complicated its content,
and thus Age of Anger requires extremely close reading. The lines between objective
fact and subjective interpretations of reasons for or consequences of a given fact are
highly blurred. For example, a sentence like the following can be extremely confusing to
the reader: “Many nation-builders and imperialists from the Jacobins to the regime-
changers and democracy-promoters of today have arrogated to themselves the
monopoly, once reserved to God, of creating the human world, and violently removing
all obstacles in their way” (297). It draws a causal relationship between imperialism or
nationalism on the one hand and politically-motivated violence on the other. The claim
that imperialists and nationalists can be equated is questionable, as is the causal
relationship mentioned previously, yet the lack of words such as ‘I’ or ‘me’ in the author’s
writing shroud the fact that the book is written in the first-person perspective.

Tone
The tone employed by the author is extremely academic throughout Age of Anger.
Though it reveals the author’s credentials as a world-renowned scholar, it can, at times,
complicate the presentation of otherwise simple ideas.

To begin with, the difficult vocabulary employed by Mishra is an obstacle which may
cause more than one reader to drop the book out of frustration or confusion, even
though it is extremely evident that word choice is important to the author and serves a
purpose. For example, in the chapter analyses of this guide, the reader will notice
references to the author’s skill at using imagery to portray an idea or a feeling. This
would only be possible using high-level vocabulary and particular word choice, however
it is undeniable that the academic tone of the book may confuse the average reader
who is not used to scholarly writing and the rather convoluted sentences the former
sometimes entails.

In other parts of the book, in particular in the final chapter, the author adopts a rather
mocking tone when referring to prevailing Western prejudiced and ideas which this book
aims to dispel or explain. It is evident that the author chooses precisely when to reveal
his opinions, saving these occasions for the end of the book when the reader has had
time to develop their own opinons. The sarcasm-laden paragraphs reveal, not cynicism,
but rather hope and a longing for change.

The author’s personal experiences as a man from the non-West but educated in the
West are made evident by his confession of the fact but also by the two-sided
presentation of ideas which Mishra engages in. He attempts to present Western and
non-Western perspectives of the same issue at every step of the way, exposing the
reader to ideas they may not have heard before. Both Western and non-Western
audiences are able to learn from the perspective employed by the author.

42
Quotes
In other words, in 1919 relatively few people could become disenchanted with liberal
modernity because only a tiny minority had enjoyed the opportunity to become
enchanted with it in the first place. Since then, however, billions more people have been
exposed to the promises of individual freedom in a global neo-liberal economy that
imposes constant improvisation and adjustment – and just as rapid obsolescence.
-- Pankaj Mishra (Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures)

Importance: This quote eloquently summarizes Mishra's argument that the rise of
industrial capitalism caused disorder in multiple ways, and that this disorder sparked the
discontentment which now fuels violent rejections of the status quo and the taken-for-
granted liberal world order. Mishra states that industrial capitalism allowed for the
creation of and recognition of entrenched inequalities among those who experienced it
and had held higher hopes for its success, yet that it also disenfranchised those who
became exposed to it more recently in emerging economies and who struggle to keep
up with its improvisation and lifespan. This disenfranchisement on two levels is
dangerous, according to the author.

As a stepchild of the West, I feel sympathetic to both sides of the debate. I know that
the divergent experiences invoked by the polemical representatives of East and West –
loss and fulfillment, deprivation and plenitude – can coexist within the same person.
-- Pankaj Mishra (Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures)

Importance: This quote demonstrates the author's self-awareness and is deliberately

stated in order to alert the reader to potential biases within his writing. Mishra is
admitting to multiple perspectives wrought by lived experience and heritage which
inform his writing but also his natural thought processes and biases, yet he also asserts
his confidence in the fact that these seemingly contradictory elements of his nature as
an author are anything but: multiple perspectives and experiences can be found within
the same individual, as identity is anything but coherent and stable.

The appeal of democracy, broadly defined as equality of conditions and the end of
hierarchy, would grow and grow – to the paradoxical point where Fascists, Nazis and
Stalinists would claim to be the real democrats, realizing a deeper principle of equality,
and offering greater participation in politics, than the bourgeois liberal democrats
bothered with.”
-- Pankaj Mishra (Clearing a Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions)

Importance: In this quote, the author reveals a paradox in which democratic ideals,
often hailed by proponents of the Western model as an Anglo-American achievement
and a cause of peace, are also ideals which have appealed and been proclaimed by the
same violent, hateful groups like the Nazis or Stalinists. Westerners have often felt
significantly removed from such non-liberal groups, yet they fail to recognize, according
to the author, that the same ideals can be transformed across different societies, and

43
that they share a lot more in common with the 'other' than they think, no matter how evil
the 'other' appears to them.

Marginalized blue-collar Christians in Rust Belt America and post-communist Poland as

well as long-bearded young Muslims in France push a narrative of victimhood and
heroic struggle between the faithful and the unfaithful, the authentic and the
inauthentic.”
-- Pankaj Mishra (Clearing a Space: History’s Winners and Their Illusions)

Importance: This quote sees Mishra deftly tying together different types of
marginalized, angry groups whose rhetoric of victimhood sounds the same, despite the
fact that, in the West, our perceptions of these groups differs greatly. Mishra is trying to
demonstrate that the same anger exists in marginalized and disaffected groups, for very
similar reasons, whether they be Muslim, Christian, American, non-American, etc.
These various groups, which more often than not hate each other as much as they hate
their circumstances, share a lot in common.

Against today’s backdrop of near-universal political rage, history’s greatest militant

lowbrow seems to have grasped, and embodied, better than anyone the incendiary
appeal of victimhood in societies built around the pursuit of wealth and power.”
-- Pankaj Mishra (Loving Oneself Through Others: Progress and Its Contradictions)

Importance: This quote explains the author's interest in Rousseau, whom he presents
to the readers as an example of a highly-acclaimed philosopher of the West whose
ideas have not only spoken to modern radicalists, extremists, and nationalists, but also
have expressed the same sentiments of resentment and victimhood in an age of
cosmpolitanism and globalization.

Uprooted iconoclastic men with their great dissatisfactions and longings for radical
equality and stability have made and unmade our world with their projects of extreme
modernity (often paradoxically pursued by imitating ancient and medieval society), and
their fantasies of restoring the moral and spiritual unity of divided human beings.
-- Pankaj Mishra (Loving Oneself Through Others: Progress and Its Contradictions)

Importance: Mishra pinpoints the general sentiments which inspire revolutions, coups,
terrorism, and more, exposing the reader to the realization that the past and present are
not mutually exclusive. By alluding to past civilizations and societies, modern dissidents
from all walks of life express what many shocked observers are unable to recognize:
that those dissidents feel uninvited, excluded, inferior, and, above all, resentful of the
divisions which separate the various peoples of modernity and classify them into groups
which appear to be impermeable.

A religious or medieval society was one in which the social, political and economic order
seemed unchangeable, and the poor and the oppressed attributed their suffering either
to fortuitous happenings – ill luck, bad health, unjust rulers – or to the will of God. The
idea that suffering could be relieved, and happiness engineered, by men radically
changing the social order belongs to the eighteenth century.”

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-- Pankaj Mishra (Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism and Revolution)

Importance: This quote reveals the significant changes which the eighteenth century
wrought in society, discarding the old values and bringing in new ones which convinced
mankind that the individual, not God, held their own fate in their hands. Mishra brings
this up in order to show that the ensuing turmoil -- which saw men resent one another
for the inequalities modern society exposed to them -- was in itself a modern product.

I’ve slammed all the doors of my past because I’m heading towards Europe and
Western civilization, and where is that civilization then, show it to me, show me one
drop of it, I’m ready to believe I’ll believe anything.”
-- Driss Chraïbi (Losing My Religion: Islam, Secularism and Revolution)

Importance: This quote, taken from Moroccan author Driss Chraïbi's book, "Heirs to the
Past," is a heart-breaking example of the psychological and emotional damage which
decades of post-colonial struggle and mimicry of the West wrought in individuals.
Feeling lied to, many like Chraïbi desperately needed to explain to themselves what it
was that their nation was striving for, which model they were accepting as the true ideal,
and why. It was challenging to ordinary people as well as to policy-makers and
philosophers alike, and Mishra's inclusion of this quote is poignant in this chapter.

A more extreme version of such Prometheanism was the belief, already articulated by
Italian nationalists and taken up by the demagogues of the twentieth century, that
bloodshed was necessary in the creation of the New Man.”
-- Pankaj Mishra ("Regaining My Religion, Part II: Messianic Visions")

Importance: This quote reveals an important trend in the nineteenth century which saw
a greater emphasis placed on masculinity and heroism as a means of self-improvement
and nation-building. The physical manifestation of these complicated psychological
elements was, naturally, warfare, which allowed for displays of masculinity and power.

All those who felt left behind by the Atlantic West’s economic and political progress
could imagine themselves to be the chosen people.”
-- Pankaj Mishra ("Regaining My Religion, Part II: Messianic Visions")

Importance: The term 'messianic' is used by the author in the title of this chapter
because it perfectly describes the religious conviction and prophetic visions
characteristic of thinkers and radicals in the nineteenth century. In particular, this
affected those from countries ravaged by colonialism and unfair comparisons against
the West's 'modernity,' prompting waves of resentment, rebellion, and nationalist
sentiment.

He bequeathed to them his conviction that heroic acts of freedom could transform the
world from an authoritarian cage into an arcadia of human freedom.
-- Pankaj Mishra ("Finding True Freedom and Equality: The Heritage of Nihilism")

Importance: Mishra is referring to Mikahil Bakunin, the Russian radical thinker whose

45
ideas in large part helped contemporary and later revolutionaries justify their violent acts
of 'heroism' in the name of their freedom. This conviction, as the author says, is rooted
in the idea that man is able to transform the world around him through his own actions,
most often through particularly violent ones.

The appeal of demagogues lies in their ability to take a generalized discontent, the
mood of drift, resentment, disillusionment and economic shakiness, and transform it into
a plan for doing something. They make inaction seem morally degrading.
-- Pankaj Mishra ("Epilogue: Finding Reality")

Importance: This quote from the final chapter of Age of Anger aptly summarizes the
content of almost the entire book, and certainly of the last few chapters: the discontent
which globalization and liberal market capitalism have helped to breed is not where
today's main problems lie. Rather, the problems -- like terrorism and militant nationalism
-- arise when demagogues, radicals, and others are able to pinpoint a given group's
similar feelings of anger and then conveniently provide a 'solution' in the form of a
collective ideology or other such motivation to unite.

46
Topics for Discussion
In "Prologue: Forgotten Conjectures," the author
definitively denounces proponents of the 'clash of the
civilizations' theory, or those who pit the West against
Islam. Why might Mishra do so in the very first
chapter of the book?
Mishra wishes to shut down commonly-held theories which propose that Islamic
fundamentalism or Islamofascism are the roots of modern-day terrorism and war. By
addressing the issue in his prologue, the author is setting up his own argument that,
instead, disorder caused by globalization and industrial capitalism have fostered
discontentment which sees individuals attempt to reassert their strength and reclaim
dignity through acts which are often extremely violent. This immediate prefacing of his
own argument with the acknowledgement that Islamophobia exists and is unjustified
serves to highlight the alternative explanation while denouncing misperceptions which
certain readers may have upon beginning to read this book.

Mishra states that our unit of analysis as readers of

Age of Anger should be "the irreducible human being"
(41). What does he mean by this?
By "the irreducible human being" (41) the author means the individual as a collection of
all of their lived experiences, emotions, fears, and desires, or, in other words, the
collective whole of a personality and all the factors which go into crafting it and changing
it over time. As such, this unit of analysis is ever-changing and can, like a mirror, reflect
various external changes to the political climate which show themselves in the human
psyche whether or not they are explicit.

How are Dostoevsky's thoughts on the Crystal Palace

reflected in his novella, Notes from Underground?
Dostoevsky's conclusion regarding the Crystal Palace saw a war of all against all as its
natural consequence, with many people, as the author says, then being losers. He
despised this individualism and the idea that man had to act rationally in order to be a
part of society, therefore he wrote his anti-hero in Notes from Underground as a
staunchly irrational, angry, almost masochistic man. The anti-hero took a great pleasure
in defying society's attempts to instil order and control.

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According to Mishra, victims of Baal, including the
"foot soldiers of radical Islamism as well as Hindu and
Chinese nationalism," (82) are often not the poorest of
the poor. Why, then, do they experience disorientation
and anger in the modern world?
Mishra states that despite not being the poorest of the poor and in fact being often of
the educated class, those who turn to radical religious movements or nationalism are
often young, rural-urban migrants, of the lower-middle class, who have turned away
from traditional sectors of society in search of the gains offered by consumerism which
are as yet inaccessible to them. This inability to fulfil their desires materially has resulted
in the feeling of disorientation, as if they are out of place and the world owes them its
initial promise of the "fantasies of consumerism" (83).

Why does Mishra use Voltaire and Rousseau as

historical examples and 'typologies' in "Loving
Oneself Through Others"?
Voltaire and Rousseau are examples of men who respectively rejoiced and despaired at
the changing moral and social environment of the Enlightenment period, with the
changes occurring in the world mirroring similar changes occurring in today's world and
indeed acting as precursors to modern issues. The differing responses of the men serve
as typologies for the kinds of men and kinds of responses which exist today. The fact
that current issues and conflicts arise due to the same feelings of rejection or
resentment which Rousseau once felt serves to emphasize the author's point that
today's problems do not arise in a vacuum and are not unique to specific groups today.

Which historical example does Mishra use to explain

the rise of current militant cultural nationalism?
Mishra refers to Rousseau's imagined 'modern Sparta' as the blueprint for a kind of
closed, community-driven society which takes care of its member-individuals and is
served by citizen-soldiers. This 'modern Sparta' and the accompanying values which
Rousseau saw it propagating actually elaborated the sentiment of militant cultural
nationalism which can be seen throughout the decades since the author's life.

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How do the Russian thinkers and writers so often
quoted by Mishra reflect a greater trend in non-
Western nation states struggling to come to terms
with modernization's expectations and changes?
The Russian author Chaadaev wrote of his people, “we are like children who have not
been taught to think for themselves: when they become adults, they have nothing of
their own" (). This statement was meant to convey the author's sadness at watching
Russia blindly imitate another while not developing or nurturing its own indigenous
cultural. Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and many others were also cognizant of the mismatch
between expectations and reality in countries which had adopted a plan to become
more like their Western counterparts: the result was a discontentment and resentment
which pervaded many spheres of life. In this way, Russia's struggle, being stuck, in a
way, between the East and the West mirrored that of other countries who saw segments
of society torn between ideas of how best to modernize.

Mishra writes that Timothy McVeigh left a quote by

John Locke in his car when he set off the deadly bomb
which put him in prison. How does that quote by John
Locke capture one of Mishra's fundamental themes?
The Locke quote reads as follows: “I have no reason to suppose that he who would take
away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.
Therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a “state of war”
against me, and kill him if I can” (282). In only two sentences, it captures the idea of "us"
versus "them," a dichotomy which Mishra focuses on heavily since it is the basis for all
nationalisms, ethnic conflicts, and other violent political statements seen today.

Mishra writes about arguments against the state

which prevail in the United States especially. In which
way are arguments against the state unique in the
U.S.?
In the U.S., suspicion of state power and motives is prevalent across the political
spectrum, in Democratic as well as Republican circles. In this sense, it is a fascinating
and unique phenomenon that “in America, it was never a sign of extremism to believe
that the government is the greatest enemy of individual freedom" (288). Some examples
of groups suspicious of the government offered by the author are "“left-leaning admirers
of Edward Snowden and critics of the National Security Agency (NSA) and
Guantanamo” as well as “the NRA, white militias and survivalist groups” (288).

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In his epilogue, the author seems to condemn
intellectuals, whom he quotes throughout the book,
for their role in furthering the idea of continuous
progress towards modernization across the globe.
What are the consequences of this belief, and why
does Mishra condemn it?
Figures like Voltaire, who represent an idealized Western philosophical tradition,
promoted the belief in reason, secularism, and modernity which in their eyes would lead
societies to expand and improve. Modernization, according to them, would bring about
greater wealth for all, more rights, and more individual freedom to choose one's own
destiny. However, Mishra has pointed out in Age of Anger that this imposed ideology of
progress had detrimental effects in non-Western parts of the world, who engaged in
mimetic rivalry and attempted to modernize faster and better than others, all for the
sake of 'catching up' to the West. This process began a descent into chaos and
resentment, which the author sees as feeding today's issues of violence, terrorism, and
militant nationalism.

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