The Empire and the Five Kings; America's Abdication and the Fate of the World
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019. First U.S. Edition [Stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Includes Prologue: On Dove's Feet, the Kurds. Part One covers The Latest News From the Empire; Part Two covers Five Kingdoms on the Offensive. Also contains Epilogue: Where Does the Sea Go at Ebb Tide? Also contains Index. At the heart of Bernard-Henri Levy's passionate essay is his anger at the betrayal of the Kurds. He spirals out from there to offer a strongly felt portrait of our contemporary reality in which the "empire of nothing", the West that has lost its way, risks being superseded by new powers, the "five kings [Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and Sunni Radical Islamism], pathetic yet daunting, cartoonish yet terrible." A challenging analysis, at once scholarly and readable. In this exquisite gem of a book, Bernard-Henri Levy offers a poetic plea for moral courage and clear thinking in these dark times. He is an international treasure. The Empire and the Five Kings is a cri de coeur that draws upon lessons from history and the eternal touchstones of human culture to reveal the stakes facing the West as America retreats from its leadership role, a process that did not begin with Donald Trump's presidency and is not likely to end with him. The crisis is one whose roots can be found as far back as antiquity and whose resolution will require the West to find a new way forward if its principles and values are to survive. More