‘The World after Gaza’ takes the war in the Middle East, and the bitterly polarised reaction to it within as well as outside the West, as the starting point for a broad revaluation of two competing narratives of the last century: the West’s triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism and the spread of liberal capitalism, and most people around the world’s frequently thwarted vision of racial equality. At a moment when the world’s balance of power is shifting and a long-dominant Western minority no longer commands the same authority and credibility, it is critically important to enter the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world’s population.

As old touchstones and landmarks crumble, only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise, powerful and pointed treatise, Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis — about whether some lives matter more than others, why identity politics built around memories of suffering is being widely embraced and why racial antagonisms are intensifying amid a far-right surge in the West, threatening a global conflagration. The World after Gaza is an indispensable moral guide to our past, present and future.

Pankaj Mishra’s books include ‘Age of Anger’ and ‘From the Ruins of Empire’. He contributes political and literary essays to the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. In 2024, he was awarded the Weston International Award and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.