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An urgent examination of how disruptive politics, technology, and art are capsizing old assumptions in a great wave of change breaking over today's world, creating both opportunity and peril — from the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Truth.
"In this dazzling and brilliant book, Michiko Kakutani explains the cascading chaos of our era and points to ways that we can regain some stability." Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk
The twenty-first century is experiencing a watershed moment defined by chaos and uncertainty, as one emergency cascades into another, underscoring the larger dynamics of change that are fueling instability across the world.
Since the global financial crisis of 2008, people have increasingly lost trust in institutions and elites, while seizing upon new digital tools to sidestep traditional gatekeepers. As a result, powerful new voices — once regarded as radical, unorthodox, or marginal — are disrupting the status quo in politics, business, and culture. Meanwhile, social and economic inequalities are stoking populist rage across the world, toxic partisanship is undermining democratic ideals, and the internet and AI have become high-speed vectors for the spread of misinformation.
Writing with a critic's understanding of cultural trends and a journalist's eye for historical detail, Michiko Kakutani looks at the consequences of these new asymmetries of power. She maps the migration of ideas from the margins to the mainstream and explores the growing influence of outsiders — those who have sown chaos and fear (like Donald Trump), and those who have provided inspirational leadership (like Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky). At the same time, she situates today's multiplying crises in context with those that defined earlier hinge moments in history, from the waning of the Middle Ages to the transition between the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era at the end of the nineteenth century.
Kakutani argues that today's crises are not only signs of an interconnected globe's profound vulnerabilities, but also stress tests pointing to the essential changes needed to survive this tumultuous era and build a more sustainable future.
Review
"Michiko Kakutani has somehow synthesized all the pain, promise, and hope of our wild and dangerous times into a slim but potent volume full of elegant thought and perfectly worded analysis." Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends
Review
"Michiko Kakutani offers a profoundly inspiring and prophetic perspective on the contemporary world. The Great Wave captivates readers with its vivid and skillful prose, imbued with both passion and sagacity. It is an exceptionally rare book, marked by its deep, sincere, and precise comprehension of the formidable challenges that humanity faces in the third millennium. This may well be a pivotal turning point." Ai Weiwei, author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir
Review
"If you think about the current state of the world and wonder how we got here, you MUST read this book. Michiko Kakutani has written a wise, lucid, beautifully researched, and exquisitely written book that will explain it all to you in an effortless and buoyant piece of writing." André Bishop, producing artistic director, Lincoln Center Theater
About the Author
Michiko Kakutani is a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic and the former chief book critic of The New York Times. She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Truth and Ex Libris.