The Great Transformation

The Great Transformation is a good title for a book - there are, in fact, no fewer than 3 books which bear the title of “The Great Transformation” – the first by Bessant (in 2021 subtitled History for a Techno-Human Future), the second by Karen Armstrong in 2006 (subtitled The Beginning of our (religious) traditions ) and the final by Karel Polyani – written in 1944 and subtitled The political and economic origins of our time). Four if you include Milanovic who add “Great” to his title of 2025 - The Great Global Transformation Branko Milanovic 

My recent reading

Generation Left Keir Milburn 2019 68pp
American Fascists – the American Right and the war on America Chris Hedges (2006) 

to which I was brought by this post
The Problem of Pain CS Lewis (1947)
Labour in Contemporary Capitalism – what next? Ursula Huws (2019) looks excellent. 

I particularly liked the way her Introduction summarises the texts produced in the 

last few decades. More authors should be doing this
The Death of Distance Francis Cairncross (1997) One of the early books about the great 

transformation
The Coming Storm – power, conflict and warnings from history Odd Westad (2026)

We are entering a phase where multiple Great Powers jostle for supremacy within regions 

and within human endeavors such as nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, or space 

exploration. Trade, which was becoming freer for two generations, almost back to where it 

was before World War I started, is increasingly more restricted and fragile, and trade wars 

are breaking out among major powers. This world is unlike anything any of us have 

experienced in our lifetimes. But it does look quite a bit like the world of more than a 

hundred years ago, from the late nineteenth century to 1914. Back then we also had a 

world of many Great Powers that clashed with one another and sought to dominate their 

neighborhoods. Nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many people felt that the 

globalization of the day had not worked for them.

The Moon is Down John Steinbeck (1942)
Anarchists Never Surrender – essays, polemics and other correspondence on Anarchism 

ed Victor Serge and Mitchell Abador (2015)
Concept of the Mind Gilbert Ryle (1957)
Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science Natasha Piano (2025)

My alternative narrative questions whether we should continue to identify modern democracy as synonymous with free and fair elections. Reviving the Italian School’s original contributions unearths a theory of democracy that might help us disassociate these two concepts in our political vocabulary. The point of this endeavor is not to eliminate elections from democratic theory.

Rather, I maintain, deflating the democratic expectations of electoral politics can help restore the legitimacy of elections and actually revive their proper role in modern popular government.

Today, when the future of contemporary democracies appears murky, the definition of democracy as free and fair elections no longer maintains the clarity that it once promised. Retracing the genealogy of democratic elitism might not only purge us of old bad habits; it might also lead us to a fresh conception of modern democracy following the Italian tradition of buon governo—democracy as part and parcel of good government.

Elites and Democracy Hugo Drochon (2026)

What’s Left? How the Left Lost its Way Nick Cohen (2007)

The Web of Meaning Jeremy Lent 2021 An important book to which I need to dedicate some patience

The Great Global Transformation Branko Milanovic 2025 199 pages
After Nations Rana Dasgupta (2026)
The Lomborg Deception – setting the record straight about global warming Howard Friel (2010)
The Language of Climate Politics, fossil-fuel propoganda and how to fight it 

G Guenther (2024)

This propaganda is spun out of six key terms that dominate the language of 

climate politics: alarmist, cost, growth, “India and China,” innovation, and 

resilience. Together these terms weave a narrative that goes something like this:

“Yes, climate change is real, but calling it an existential threat is just alarmist—and anyway phasing out coal, oil, and gas would cost us too much. Human flourishing relies on the economic growth enabled by fossil fuels, so we need to keep using them and deal with climate change by fostering technological innovation and increasing our resilience. Besides, America should not act unilaterally on the climate crisis while emissions are rising in India and China.”

On The Calculation of Volume – vol 1 Solvej Balle (2024) a novel
China’s Twentieth Century Wang Hui (2016)
Capital Rules – the construction of Global Finance  R Abdelal (2007)
Lies, Spies and Exile – the extraordinary story of the Russian Spie, Robert Blake Simon Kupar (2021)
The Writer and the Traitor Robert Verkaik (2026)
Irregular Army -how the war on terror brought neo-nazis, gang members and criminals 

 

into the US military  Matt Kennard (2012)

On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stood in front of the assembled great and good of the Pentagon and delivered an expansive lecture entitled Bureaucracy to Battlefield.2 Its prescriptions were extremely radical—among the most portentous in US military history —but thanks to the terrorist atrocities the following day his words remain buried deep in the memory hole, while their consequences are buried under the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. “The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,” Rumsfeld began, before revealing the threat to be not Al-Qaeda, but the “Pentagon bureaucracy.” “Not the people, but the processes,” he added reassuringly. “Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them.” In essence, Rumsfeld’s speech that day was designed to lay the ground and soften up his workers for a massive privatization of the Department of Defense’s services.

The Long 1989 – decades of global revolution ed Kockiki and Kal (2019)

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe Ralf Dahrendorf (1990)
Reflections on the Revolution of our time Harold Laski (1947)
Episode of Maigret with Rowan Atkinson
Toynbee’s A Study of History ed Somervell (1947)
Artful Truths – the philosophy of memoir Helena de Bres (2021)
The Great Awakening – new modes of life amongst capitalist ruins ed A Grear and 

D Bollier (2020)
Radical Republicanism – recovering the traditions of popular heritage ed Stuart White 

et al (2020)
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?  Film with Spencer Tracey
Dismantling Solidarity – Capitalist politics and American pensions since the new 

deal Michael McCarthy (2017)
War and Power – who wins wars and why Philips O’Brien (2025)