Last week I published a Salon review of Peter Turchin's new book, "End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration," which I have described as the most comprehensive explanation so far of the current and ongoing crisis of American politics. (My interview with Turchin for Salon appeared two weeks earlier.)
But there's much more to "End Times" than could possibly be covered in a normal book review, both in terms of Turchin's cyclical understanding of political history and the interaction of elite groups and counter-elites in what he calls "structural-demographic theory," or SDT. I believe that the better we understand how everything fits together in Turchin's system, the firmer our foundation will be in terms of moving forward and saving democracy.
