Age of Revolutions Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present

Age of Revolutions, which just came out in paperback. Age of Revolutions examines the historical roots for the ongoing rise of far-right populism, but it does so by looking back at other periods in which politics began to topple and fall into upheaval when the things people thought were possible, the things they knew were true, stopped being true.

author of the great book Age of Revolutions, Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, which came out in paperback on November 4th.

So I'm joined today by Fareed Zakaria, the host of GPS and CNN, a Washington Post columnist and the author of the bestselling book Age of Revolutions.

Joining me now is Freed Zakaria, the host of Freed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a columnist for The Washington Post and the author of, among other books, The Age of Revolutions.

So my sense of reading you overall, particularly reading your new book Age of Revolutions, is a sense of sadness and surprise that the world finds itself today in a state of peril.

This one, age of revolutions is subtitled progress and backlash from 1600 to the present.

It's all interesting and well written and insightful but it is the present that I wanted to speak about with Zakaria.

We are living through possibly the most revolutionary period in human history.

Here's what Zakaria writes about Russia Vladimir Putin has harnessed identity politics and ginguism as a response to his nation's structural decline and Zakaria says Putin has done this masterfully.

I'm reading Fried Zakaria's, what's it called, Age of Revolutions

If you look at the United States, the group that has fallen furthest fastest is young men, but if you look at globally the group that hands down has ascended the fastest over the last several decades is women.

And this is both a professor Guyatt and Fridt Zakaria's new book, "The Age of Revolutions," I think it's called.

Publishers of Age of Revolutions by best selling author for Reed Zakaria who explores the revolutions past and present that define the polarized age in which we live, available wherever books are sold.

And it's called The Age of Revolutions, Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the present by Fareed Zakaria. It's fantastic and I'm already sort of parroting some of Fareed's thought leadership.

Your new book Age of Revolutions Progress and Backlast from 1600 to the present walks the reader through pivotal revolutions that have shaped world history- the economic revolution, the French revolution, the industrial revolution, and for present day revolutions globalization technology identity and geopolitics.

It would be the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution changed the world.

if you ask yourself what is the single thing that has changed the course of human history? The most discontinuous feature of human life. It is the industrial revolution where finally human beings were able to get themselves out of poverty, out of real grinding medieval poverty and almost on a sustained basis keep raising their standards of living for 250 years.

The central argument of the book is every time you have these massive changes and technology and economics propelling some societies forward dramatically you get two things happen, you get an identity and a political revolution the identity revolution because you start to think of yourself differently.

I think India is probably the next most important one I know India is having a kind of moment in the sun but it's basically justified it's because there's no other country that has the scale that China has and India has that scale and it has an incredibly vibrant economy it's growing from a very slow a small base people don't completely understand when they sort of talk about India as the next China so Chinese economy is still four and a half times bigger than the Indian economy and so it's India is going to have to take a take a while to catch up but it is on that scale.

And your book 'Revolution', which we will wave here, has just been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Awards for 2016.

Well, this is a near-term techno-thriller, so it's science fiction in the sense that I use real science to see what's happening with the future of brain-computer interfaces and other kinds of brain technologies.

Well, this is a near term techno thriller so it's science fiction in the sense that I use real science to see what's happening with the future of brain computer interfaces And other kinds of brain technologies.

As you know Philip K. Dick was all about reality And I play a lot in my book with if we start messing around with different ways of perception If we start connecting ourselves directly to the internet if we start altering our minds so that we Can think smarter faster quote-unquote better.

What if we don't forget? What will that do to us so because I deal a lot in the trippiness of The protagonist experiencing these things I think that's kind of why the Phil K. Dick people were interested in the book because no one was trippier than mr. Dick.

It's called 'Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present.'

This is much harder.

The weirdness of the Tea Party movement which was essentially trying to take over and transform the Republican Party.

The fact that you were finding in the Republican Party voices that were fundamentally hostile to kind of the old Reagan formula of free trade, open markets, pro-immigration all that made me realize there's something big going on.

The rise of forces like that ended up leading to Brexit.

It's called Age of Revolutions, Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present. And what I'm trying to do is ask myself, why does it feel like we're living in such revolutionary times where our politics is being upended? The Republican Party of Reagan has turned into the party of Trump, which is almost the opposite. The Democrats coalition has completely shifted from blue collar working class to this. Why does the economics seem so different? There was a period of free trade globalization. Now everyone's talking industrial policy. Why does the world seem like it's... And what I did is in a way of trying to teach myself about it, I went back and asked myself, when have we had previous revolutionary periods in human history and what can we learn from them? So I look at the French revolution, I look at the industrial revolution, and I draw some lessons. And it's taken me almost a decade because I had to go back to school, but I'm very proud of it.

It's called Age of Revolutions, Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present.

And what I'm trying to do is ask myself, why does it feel like we're living in such revolutionary times where our politics is being upended?

The Republican Party of Reagan has turned into the party of Trump, which is almost the opposite.

The Democrats coalition has completely shifted from blue collar working class to this, why does the economics seem so different?

There was a period of free trade, globalization. Now everyone's talking industrial policy.

Revolution was also the title of Macron's memoir and in that book and on the campaign trail Macron made the case for big structural reforms for France.