Reading "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce

It's nearly time for the third get-together of Suffolk Coastal Liberal Democrats' new Book Group. We'll be meeting on Saturday 2nd December to talk about Edward Luce's book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism. Luce is a UK journalist, and the chief US commentator for the Financial Times. From the publisher's blurb:

"In The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Luce makes a [...] statement about the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of democratic liberalism - of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a symptom. Luce argues that we are on a menacing trajectory brought about by ignorance of what it took to build the West, arrogance towards society's losers, and complacency about our system's durability - attitudes that have been emerging since the fall of the Berlin Wall, treated by the West as an absolute triumph over the East. We cannot move forward without a clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Luce contrasts Western democratic and economic ideals, which rest on an assumption of linear progress, with more cyclical views of economic strength - symbolized by the nineteenth-century fall and present-day rise of the Chinese and Indian economies - and with the dawn of a new multipolar age."

You can find a couple of book reviews at the following links:

• The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/books/review-retreat-of-western-liberalism-edward-luce.html
• The Economist: https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21723808-edward-luce-believes-liberal-order-cannot-be-fixed-without-clear-view-what

If you are a member of Suffolk Coastal Liberal Democrats and you are interested in attending the discussion, there is still time to get hold of a copy and read it before the meeting -- in the introduction to the book, the author estimates that it will take three hours to read. Check your emails from August for more information about our trial Book Group (or contact us via the website).