The Lost Future
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And How to Reclaim It
Jan Zielonka
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Format: HardcoverPrice: $28.00
A timely and compelling argument for a revitalized and restructured global politics
The future seems increasingly uncertain. Our democracies are failing to prevent financial crises, energy shortages, climate change, and war—so how can we look to the future with confidence?
Jan Zielonka argues that it is democracy’s shortsightedness that makes politics stumble in our increasingly connected world. With our governments still confined to the borders of nation-states, defending the short-term interests of present-day voters, the consequences for future generations are dire.
In this incisive account, Zielonka makes a bold case for a new politics of time and space. He considers how democracy should adjust to the world of high speed, and he questions our everyday experiences as citizens: Is it acceptable for authorities and firms to monitor our whereabouts? Why is the distribution of time and space so unequal? And, most crucially, can we construct a new system of governance that will allow us to plan ahead with certainty?
Jan Zielonka is professor of politics and international relations at the University of Oxford and at the University of Venice, Cá Foscari. He is the author of the prize-winning Counter Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat and is a contributor to several leading European newspapers.
“TheLost Future made me once again realise that Jan Zielonka is not simply a brilliant writer, but he is also a very rare type of political thinker, responsible iconoclast, and a hopeful sceptic.”—Ivan Krastev, author of Is It Tomorrow Yet?
“A clear-sighted and vibrant dissection of many of the problems that beset our modern world. But this is far more than an elegy for a bright future that we will never see. In the end Zielonka outlines a vision, at once tentative and compelling, for breaking out of the systems that constrain us to reclaim the possibility of a different fate.”—James Crawford, author of The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World
“Jan Zielonka has deftly and accessibly combined deep physical insights about space and time with an original and interesting diagnosis of the ills facing democracy and the opportunities offered by the networked world. The Lost Future offers provocative new ways of thinking about the present.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
20 b/w illus.
