Uprising — The Populist Revolt and Battle for the Soul of the West
A journalist’s absorbing deep-dive into the far-right counterrevolution
In recent years the far-right’s growing mainstream acceptance has come to feel unstoppable. On a platform of identity, family, nationalism and anti-immigration, populist parties have seen electoral wins throughout the West. Underlying their valorisation of what is ‘natural’ and ‘realistic’, however, is a broader counterrevolutionary movement against the left-liberal globalist elite and what is perceived as the undermining of Western identity.
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In Uprising, journalist Marijn Kruk uncovers the beginnings of this populist wave in the 1968 protests, when many of the individual rights and trends that typify the world today began to take shape. He charts the movement’s rise, from its intellectual roots with Edmund Burke and Roger Scruton, through the radical right’s international political breakthrough in 2015. After the European migrant crisis and Brexit, the far-right has only spread.
Travelling to England, Austria, France, Turkey and Hungary, Kruk attends rallies and speaks with everyday far-right voters and political main players. In Budapest he finds a conservative ecosystem, intended as intellectual incubator and international model. Mixing interview and history, Kruk also tracks the ascendancy of political figures like Victor Orban, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, and with novelistic flourish reconstructs acts of politically inspired violence and martyrdom.
And while these parties can cause great damage and must be resisted politically, Kruk remains hopeful. Ultimately the general trend throughout history is towards individual rights, secularisation, progress and migration. Kruk wonders whether the far-right’s attempts to turn the tide of history are exactly as ‘natural’ and ‘realistic’ as they claim.
An investigation into the rise of populism in multiple European countries, as well as Turkey and Tunisia
A stylishly written, accessible mix of interview, political history and travelogue
A clear look at the power behind the far-right movement, from fear and paranoia about the loss of national identity to the way these feelings are stoked by populist leaders
Rights
Job Lisman
j.lisman@pbo.nl
“Marijn Kruk is an astute analyst and reporter who gains extensive access to radical right circles. […] He turns out a whole book case of writings by historians and philosophers, though his story never slows and remains very accessible, mostly thanks to the lively descriptions of meetings with reactionary old hands, “bow-tie conservatives” and hardened activists.”
“An indispensable book, one that’s brilliantly written.”
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