Dear colleagues, you can follow the discussion of the relationship between the nation/state and democracy, the global class and populism in the book: Jan Zielonka, Counter Revolution. Liberal Europe in Reatreat. It is also good to look at the article: The Global Class and the new Inequality by Ralf Dahrendorf., and Antonio Polito: Die Krisen der Demokratie. Ein Gespräch. C. H. Beck, München 2003
Jan Zielonka
The book takes the form of a series of heartfelt letters to the late European guru Ralf Dahrendorf. Several months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dahrendorf wrote a book fashioned on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Like Burke, he chose to put his analysis in the form of
a letter, reflecting on the implications of the turbulent period around 1989. Thirty years' later, and faced with an equally turbulent period, Jan Zielonka asks: what next?
This is not a book on populism, however: it is a book about liberalism. Populism has become a favourite topic within liberal circles and few have exposed populist deceptions and dangers better than liberal writers. Yet, liberals have shown themselves better at finger-pointing than at
self-reflection. This book addresses the imbalance; it is a self-critical book by a life-time liberal.