This is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain

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Description

The UK has been in a crisis of its own making: from the 2018 Financial Crash to Covid 19 and the collapse of Brexit negotiations in 2021. What just happened This Is Not Normal takes stock of a historical moment that no longer recognises itself. Davies tells a story of the apparently chaotic and irrational events, and extracts their underlying logic and long-term causes. What we are seeing is the effects of the 2008 financial crash, the failure of the British neoliberal project, the dying of Empire, and the impact of the changes that technology and communications have had on the idea of the public sphere as well as the power of information. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to make sense of this current moment.

Reviews

This book presses pause on the dazzling contingent brightness of the present, and allows the reflections of the evening to gather and turn towards a new day. * Manchester Review of Books *
Brilliant ... Davies will be one of the experts to turn to guide us through the coming years. * WIRED *
As William Davies brilliantly articulates in his most recent book, This is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain, it's hard to convincingly advocate for normality, or indeed for norms in general, if you've spent years openly trashing the very notion. -- Dublin Review of Books
This Is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain seeks to pore over the deeper roots, expressions and manifestations of four interlocking crises in British politics, addressing some of the most pressing and perplexing questions facing the UK ... as Davies so skillfully shows, it would be foolish to make any firm predictions of what happens next. * LSE Review of Books *
This Is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain seeks to pore over the deeper roots, expressions and manifestations of four interlocking crises in British politics ... as Davies so skillfully shows, it would be foolish to make any firm predictions of what happens next. * Brave New Europe *
But as an example of what its author calls "real-time sociology," the book harbors more ambition and more value than just a chronicle. Building on theoretical insights developed in his earlier work, Davies undertakes an applied investigation into the intertwined fates of liberalism, democracy, and media in the Anglo-American present, an investigation anchored in the problem of trust. -- Adam Kelly * LA Review of Books *
Brilliant . explains how the rhetoric of competition has invaded almost every domain of our existence -- Evgeny Morozov, author of To Save Everything, Click Here * [for The Limits of Neoliberalism] *

Author Bio

William Davies is a Reader in Political Economy at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Centre [PERC]. He is the author of The Limits of Neoliberalism, The Happiness Industry and Nervous States. He writes regularly for the Guardian, London Review of Books and the New York Times.