MixedCity JournalEngrossing but often vexing ... His poetic outlook echoes William Blake’s: the divine is everywhere ... Kingsnorth is a gifted stylist and a syncretic thinker. At their best, his insights are sharp and layered. He is an astute critic of the fashionable nonsense that passes for contemporary politics. Though he indicts both sides of the culture war...he is especially sharp in skewering the follies of wokeness ... Still, some readers might find that this portrait drifts toward caricature ... The book retains the feel of an author thinking aloud. The tone can swing from subtle to overwrought and back again ... When he turns to capitalism and liberal democracy, Kingsnorth’s passion gets the better of him ... For all his eloquence, Kingsnorth rests his boldest claims on little more than vibes ... He blames the Enlightenment for the violence of the French Revolution but gives it no credit for free speech or civil rights ... Kingsnorth has no interest in data, which he considers mere tricks of the Machine. This leaves his treatise fatally incomplete ... His implicit economic program would leave everyone at the mercy of guilds of local craftsmen. He is making an aesthetic pitch for poverty ... In declaring the West dead...Kingsnorth loses perspective ... And he overlooks a central part of human nature ... Whatever one makes of his prescriptions, Kingsnorth asks fundamentally important questions.
