Big Promises

After 1789, the educated wondered whether the French Revolution, which they had initially celebrated, had really brought freedom, or rather terror, despotism, and alienation. But soon people realised that ‘the species could not have made progress in any other way’ (Schiller). In his brief theory of the modern era, Detlef Pollack shows in a nutshell that the ability to self-correction and self-criticism has been inherent in modernity from the very beginning. The major crises of the present day as new military threats, the climate crisis, migration flows and right-wing populism are undermining people’s faith in freedom and democracy. The longing for a new, old simplicity is strong. We must resist it. Because the modern era, as this illuminating book shows, has by no means reached the limits of its capacity for self-correction.

• 191 pages with diagrams and tables

• publication February 12th, 2025