The World After Gaza

Reviews

“Stimulating and brilliantly researched . . . no incendiary polemic, but rather a sober and extensively documented treatise on the discursive history that has given rise to the current situation.” —The Irish Times

“Mishra’s book is a triumphant work of empathy in a polarizing conflict. It gives voice and extends sympathy and probes the innermost fears and aspirations of both parties in the conflict — and shows how fine the line is between humanity and its opposite.” —Anand Giridharadas, The.Ink

“The World After Gaza is a book of magnitude and grace. Mishra’s skills as a novelist enable him to provide vivid portraits of men and women struggling (and sometimes failing) to rail against the injustices of their eras. In doing so, we find not only a lament for what has gone wrong, a warning against the complicity that convenience can give rise to and an elegy for the world order that we are at risk of losing, but also a guide as to what we can be, each of us, individually.” —Markaz Review

“Mishra, who has employed his crystalline prose in novels and nonfiction alike, methodically unpacks the 'extensive moral breakdown' that preceded what he describes as 'the blithe slaughter of innocents in Gaza.' . . . At heart, this is an exhaustively sourced plea for historical literacy that opens up what Mishra calls 'a broader vista of human fraternity and solidarity' and recognizes that across the globe, people victimized by 'historical mass crimes of genocide, slavery and racist imperialism' wonder why 'their own holocausts . . . have not been much regarded in history.' . . . A clear-eyed look at the Holocaust as justification for Israel’s wars.” —Kirkus

“In this urgent book, Mishra grapples with the inexplicable spectacle of stone-faced Western elites ignoring, and indeed justifying, the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Mishra reflects on the supposedly universal consensus that emerged from the Holocaust, as well as his own early sympathies for Israel, as he expounds on the terrible toll of this passivity in the face of atrocity.” —Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

“Guided by a determination to find an exit from the loop of endlessly repeating atrocities, Mishra leads readers on a search for meaning in modern history’s most depraved episodes. This is a rare text: courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding.” —Naomi Klein, author of Doppelganger

“This profoundly important and urgent book finds Mishra, one of our most intellectually astute and courageous writers, at the peak of his powers. His outrage is hard to ignore. But at the center of this urgent book is a humane inquiry into what suffering can make us do, and he leaves us with the troubling question of what world will we find after Gaza.” —Hisham Matar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return and My Friends

“Mishra’s latest undertakes the difficult but important task of reconciling the contradictory stories of the Global North and the Global South. While the former has squandered the last of its alleged moral authority in support of neoliberal empire the latter urgently seeks liberation from the deadly and ongoing aftershocks of colonialism. Essential reading." —Literary Hub

“Pankaj Mishra is our globally leading public intellectual, and his coruscating and scintillating meditation on the ethical purchase of Holocaust memory as the Gaza war goes on is one of the indispensable documents of civilization in a barbaric time. With his alert conscience, impeccable learning, and meditative writing, Mishra chronicles how the very attempt to register the crimes of the past in a world of continuing hierarchy can transform into an alibi for the disasters of the present.” —Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself and Humane

“A brilliant book, as thoughtful, scholarly and subtle as it is brave and original, The World After Gaza does what great writing is meant to do: to remind us of what it is to be human, to help us feel another's pain, to reach out and make connections across the trenches of race, color, and religion.”—William Dalrymple, author of The Golden Road

“Both a timeless and timely book, reading The World After Gaza feels like engaging in an ongoing conversation about the meaning of the Holocaust and colonialism with a good attentive friend.” —Eyal Weizman, author of Forensic Architecture

“An astute, humane, and necessary intervention, opening a path to the altered consciousness which has to be a consequence of Israel’s war on Gaza.” —Ahdaf Soueif, author of Cairo and The Map of Love

“With this utterly essential book, Pankaj Mishra has made a powerful contribution to the moral history of the world, bringing proportion and insight to a subject that is routinely lacking in both . . . The devastation of Gaza cannot be understood as a retaliatory act, but as a brutal extension of Israel’s renewed commitment to clearing lands that are not their own. Mishra’s book shows great understanding of the historical prejudice and violence that Jews themselves have suffered, and offers new clarity about how that trauma might have formed the current Israeli rhetoric . . . I can only say that fair-minded people and readers everywhere have a friend in this book, which sees without blinkers and speaks without fear. If books have a role today in the elucidation of justice, then I believe The World After Gaza will prove to be as crucial to our own times as James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time was to his.” —Andrew O'Hagan, author of Caledonian Road

“Pankaj Mishra remembers the future. The World After Gaza, with its elegant outrage and eloquent ache, will be the reference for those who judge our times tomorrow. Thanks to Mishra's all-too-human work, the next generation will know we were not all in vain.” —Ece Temelkuran

“Mishra brings his humanism, moral clarity and deep, cosmopolitan erudition to the question of how survivors of a genocide built a society that is committing a genocide broadcast live on our smartphones. A towering intellectual achievement.” —Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun (with Marwan Hisham)

"A book of passion, fury, and clarity. Mishra is one of the most important voices of our generation." —Peter Frankopan

"We all owe Pankaj Mishra a debt for crafting eloquent, urgent, and undeniable words from the horrors we are struggling to witness." —Afua Hirsch
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