Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World

"Cultural Pessimism" charts the growth of pessimism in the West during the last decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on studies from a broad range of fields, including ecology, human rights, military history, international relations, criminology, history of science, cultural criticism, and poli [...]
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"Cultural Pessimism" charts the growth of pessimism in the West during the last decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on studies from a broad range of fields, including ecology, human rights, military history, international relations, criminology, history of science, cultural criticism, and political economy, the author shows how cultural pessimism in the postmodern world can be related to the cumulative effect of four key narratives of decline: environmental, moral, intellectual, and political. Proposing that cultural pessimism is as much a matter of psychological and biological disposition as of intellectual judgement, Oliver Bennett's challenging book offers valuable new insights into how we view the prospects of the twenty-first century.