is an eclectic writer who quotes freely from the Bible, the Iliad, Hannah Arendt, the Talmud, some writers you've heard of and some you've never heard before.
He has also lived a charmed life, filming documentaries in war torn areas over the years while being involved in global geopolitics, A writer of his ilk should always be given a chance,
In this book, his central thesis was that as America is slowly abdicating its role on the global stage,"kings" namely Putin, Erdogan, Iran's Ayatollahs, President Xi and the House of Saud i am guessing MBS are filling the void and in the process trying to resurrect their old empires, the likes of USSR, Ottoman, the Chinese Empire, the Persian empire and I am not sure if the house of Saud had
an earlier empire but you get the gist.
The thesis has some merit, We all agree that the post WWstructure is fraying but we do not know what comes next, Bernard provided the answer.
I agreed with him on the central outline of his ideas but his rendition left a lot to be desired, Bernard delivered his points on the sheer force of narrative, There was no data. When he got it right the chapters were a lulu, especially the opening chapters but when he got it wrong the reader got lost in his wandering thoughts trying to torture out a coherent narrative from a chapter that ended up being a litany of his biases.
I particularly did not like how he was enamored by America calling it the city on the hill while showing a complete disdain of the other "kings" and their empires.
This reeked of a reheating of the cold war propaganda, But Bernard is clever, earlier in the book he challenged the reader to a thought process, where he asked one to take a fair scale and put America's ills on one side and the good that America has done on the global stage on the other side and see where the scale tilts.
When you do this you realise how you tilt the scale reveals more about your biases rather than an unassailable answer of America's goodness or badness, and so you allow Bernard a leeway to praise America endlessly while calling the new empires ghosts and some other demeaning names.
I will issue a qualified recommendation for this book, it has a lot of original thought but its rendition and lack of data open it up for a lot of criticism.
A better take on the topic well argued with a systematic thought process can be found in Kagan's sitelinkThe Jungle Grows Back: The Case for American Power.
I will advise the interested reader to read both books, may be start with Kagan's first then wash it down with this one, Excellent book on the state we reached today, It's going on three years since this book was published and overall, it holds up pretty well, In general, he is a fan of the USA being the world's dominant power and policeman over against the "five kings" Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and the Sunni Muslim world exemplified by Saudi Arabia.
He was no fan of President Donald Trump, who was president when he wrote this book, Would be interesting to get his take on President Joe Biden, particular on his withdrawal from Afghanistan and the current RussiaUkraine crisis, His sympathies are generally with the world's underdogs, In this book he wrote a lot about the Kurds of Iraq and Syria, His great fear seems to be that America's temptation is to withdraw from world affairs, to be isolationist as it was in the's, leaving the "Five Kings" to try to revive their empires.
Interesting and contrarian arguments about the direction of thest century, For a short book, it meanders at times, and isnt always easy to follow, Worth a read and thinking about the authors argument about the trajectory of the west and the seemingly rising challengers, Excellent read on the state of the world today from someone who does not mince his words, Unfortunately, the forces of antidemocracy and obscurantism are numerous, and therefore do not expect more praise than criticism on this masterwork, Hope this awakens some consciousness on the values and foundations of democratic principles: freedoms of expression not action which is anarchy and equal women's rights, I really enjoyed this book, It's an interesting insight into the state of the world made by an astute observer of America,
Levy's basic premise is that the United States is sleeping while five, totalitarian kings Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, China and Iran are running roughshod, gobbling up the world or at least the Middle East, and sowing the seeds of future conflicts.
He is particularly outraged by the fates of Syrian Kurds, who led the ground war against Isis, only to be abandoned by the American commanderinchief and left to the infinitesimal mercies of three of the "kings:" Turkey, Iran and the House of Saud.
Levy provides some interesting insights on American culture and its place in the world, He points out that 'Americans will never build anything permanent,' which I disagreed with at first, but then took a look at my own shapeshifting town and realized the truth.
Americans don't speak with the wisdom of centuries sad nor do we expect our ideas and works to endure for centuries not a bad way to be, IMO.
We just live life as we wish to here, without ever closing the door to moving there at some point in the future.
In general, I felt that Levylike most European observersoverestimates the desire of voting Americans to step in and fix the world's problems militarily, There is still a strong military culture here, but a lessening desire to do the bidding of almost every country but tiny, little Israel, To me, let someone else stop these kings in their tracks, Why not France or India for a change would that i could, not only would i give this book zero but i would put BHL on trial in front of a Libyan peoples tribunal.
one of the worst, most wormbrained books ive ever suffered through, Levy loves western empire and empire loves him! but he completely refuses to engage with the practical implications of empire, or of his beloved “humanitarian intervention”,
the reality is this: if you live in the west and enjoy a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, it is propped up by perpetrating unimaginable violence, physical and economic, on the developing world and any and all who dare oppose democratic representation and free market capital.
weve done/everyday for the past few decades basically to ensure that americans can still get their treats with the upmost convenience, Levy wants what every good neocon wants: to eat his treats and forget the rest,
Ill renegotiate my position on reeducation camps once weve dealt with the likes of BHL A thoughtful meditation on the abdication of global power by the United States and the revanchism of 'five kings' Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and the Sunni states to fill the vacuum created.
Full of ten dollar words and Gallic disdain, Levy writes beautiful prose with a superior yet mournful point of view, Some sharp turns of phrase and numerous allusions to philosophy, history, and mythology make it worth a quick read, BernardHenri Levy is surely one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, and certainly most relevant among the contemporary philosophers that France has produced, Unlike many of his colleagues who ply their trade while safely ensconced in their academic ivory towers, BHL has been out there on the front lines literally.
Witnessing the American acquiescence to the betrayal of the Kurds by the rag tag and corrupt Iraqi army in Kirkuk, and by the Turks in Afrin, Levy realized that he was witnessing the early stages of a new and very dark epoch, Post Cold War America "The Empire" is ceding, or rather forfeiting its leadership position as the bastion of liberal democracy in favor of five ascending powers, namely Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and radical Islam "The Five Kings" that are positioning to fill the power vacuum by default and to usher in a new and very dangerous world order.
Those of us who grew up enjoying the fruits of western liberalism and democracy, as well as those who look to the west for their inspiration, and perhaps their salvation should take note.
Regrettably, BHL cannot resist the temptation to cloth his thesis in historical and philosophical references and parallels, many that are quite obscure and opaque, I know, he is a French intellectual and so this is par for the course, I get it. Still, it is at the detriment of his important thesis, Please, Messieur Levy, more matter with less art would make your work more accessible to an American audience that needs to hear, and comprehend your vital message.
UPDATE: Oct: With Trump's insame and impetuous betrayal of the Kurds that NE Syria, we are witnessing the terrifying first fruits of the American abrogation or responsibility and leadership that BHL warned us about.
The consequences will prove to be very brutal, There has been much discussion lately, especially after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency, of the receding role of Western and American influence in the world and BernardHenri Lévy's latest book is just one of many forthcoming treatises on this marked change in geopolitics.
As we all sort through the various books on this subject we must be diligent in assessing how the changing world dynamic is assessed by these authors.
We must distinguish serious analyses from extenuated newspaper commentaries and selfserving compendiums that elevate the role of the author in the discussions of the subject matter, I place The Empire and the Five Kings in the latter category more on that in a minute,
The author begins his book be describing his connection and love for the Kurdish people, I found this intriguing and I was excited about the direction the book was going to go in, I quickly learned, however, that the only direction that Lévy was headed toward was proving an alarmist condemnation of the attempts of Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and China to assume the throne of world leadership that the US has seemingly abandoned.
For anyone who follows the news, this is not a surprise, But what Lévy provides is longwinded, winding narrative that at times loses focus of the thesis of his book, What stood out very clearly to me is how much resentment he has toward Iran, He frequently invoked Godwin's Law labeling an opponent as a supporter of Hitler or Nazism when describing thedecision by Reza Shah to rename Persia "Iran" as the country's commitment to Aryanism and categorizing the Arab world in thes and earlys as supporters of Nazism.
Intriguing accusations. He cited some names, but it would have been great if he had footnotes or a bibliography, My interest was piqued, but I will have to read up on this topic on my own,
Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey the author has no love whatsoever for Recep Tayyip Erdogan also come under his attack, but not to the extent that Iran does.
Lévy's love for the Kurds might have injected a little bit more hostility in his analysis,
Ultimately, the "five kings" are bound to fail because they are trying to resuscitate the golden years of each of their previous empires, They will fail because they are merely masquerading what they truly want: power, They could not care less about their own people, Many readers, including me, would agree with this assessment,
Lévy is extremely wellread and he throws out a lot of names and references, But the number of them and their distance from relevance to the point he was making made it hard to follow what he was trying to say.
He assumes that we all know the names of figures from Classical history while I knew some of them, most were unknown to me,
But what this book comes down to is that it a paean to the author, Even he seems to recognize this when he writes, "Bear with me one last time when I say that I have spent nearly as much time circling the globe as I have reading and writing.
" Early he seems to elevate his importance and he wants us to know this, He writes, "There are the books in which I cataloged ad nauseum the stern, bare principles of democracy and human rights and, therefore, the alwaysopen opportunity for their application in countries seemingly exotic and far away.
"
There are two competing narratives in this book one is the love the author has for the Kurds and the other is a testament to how much he has read and traveled.
Readers will have to decide which one speaks to them more clearly,
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Read Online The Empire And The Five Kings: Americas Abdication And The Fate Of The World Originated By Bernard-Henri Lévy Paperback
Bernard-Henri Lévy