Empire of Democracy: The Remaking of the West Since the Cold War

Historian Reid-Henry (The Cuban Cure) attempts, with mixed success, to corral and synthesize the last half-century of Western democratic states in this sprawling history, which begins with the Paris protests in the summer of 1968 and stretches to the 2016 votes triggering the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union and electing Donald Trump as U.S. president. Reid-Henry’s scholarship is impressive, gathering a wide range of historical anecdotes and referencing a diverse set of thinkers (citing Betty Friedan, Daniel Boorstin, and John Kenneth Galbraith on a single page), but this erudite and formidable project ultimately falters under the immense weight of its massive ambitions. The overwhelming volume of varied historical and cultural events—ranging from the emergence of the gay rights movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the freeing of Nelson Mandela, and the Clinton impeachment to the release of the movie The Blair Witch Project—require jumping from event to event with dizzying speed. Moments of succinct, elegant analysis, such as his insightful summation of the 1980s conservative movements (“the Thatcher-Reagan brand of neoliberalism actively required the state and its levers of control. Its task was not to reduce state power but to transform it.”) can be lost among verbose passages. The immense scope and intermittently dense prose make this a daunting task for all but the most committed of readers. [em](June) [/em]