Pankaj Mishra

Western ‘Unity’ Is Making the Ukraine War Worse

More than 100 days of war in Ukraine have not only unleashed multiple political, economic and environmental crises; Vladimir Putin’s invasion has also revived dangerous delusions in the West. A few months ago, acute divisions plagued the United States, the European Union and ties between them…

Why So Many Countries Want to Sit Out the New Cold War

“Democracies are rising to the moment,” US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address, as Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his vicious war on Ukraine. Francis Fukuyama leads a band of commentators claiming that the “spirit of 1989” is back and we are about to witness…

UK and France Need to Reckon With Race

A new division has opened up within what used to be called the “West.” Divesting white supremacism of political legitimacy, the United States has begun a fresh reckoning with its past of slavery and begun to meaningfully acknowledge its demographic diversity. At the same time, the ruling classes…

America’s Age of Anger Is Just Getting Started

A nightmare began with Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016. It has just been extended indefinitely with his narrow loss and wild allegations of electoral fraud. In his 2016 campaign, Trump prospered by challenging the legitimacy of America’s political and economic system, arguing that it was…

Germany Confronted its Past and Flourished. So Can the US

A cultural revolution is sweeping across Great Britain and the United States. Toppling statues of slave owners, protesters are demanding moral reparations — an acknowledgement that slavery and imperialism underpinned the wealth and power of two of the world’s most prominent countries, condemning…

A Counter-Revolution Is Brewing in the UK and Europe

Behind the headlines about Brexit, a counter-revolution has quietly occurred in Britain in recent years. Its reverberations seemed certain to reach beyond the English Channel when last week the guillotine unexpectedly came down on Sajid Javid, the Chancellor of the British Exchequer. Javid, a…

The New Zealand Massacre is an Alarm Bell for Humanity

The Australian-born gunman who killed 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week cited US President Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” with his murderous white-supremacist cause. Trump condemned the massacre and said he was being unfairly…

Can Imran Khan Create a New Pakistan?

Four years ago, on the day Narendra Modi was elected prime minister, I wrote that India was entering its most sinister phase since independence. This was a well-grounded fear for anyone who had noted Modi’s steadfast commitment to Hindu supremacism and the fragile state of India’s economy. Today,…