Taking Control! by Anthony Barnett is a clear-eyed view of the precipice on which the world is currently balanced and, for the most part, offers a qualified optimism for surviving and making a better world.

Like many such moments in history, the shorthand can be misleading even while it is fairly accurate. In this very specific moment it is Biden vs Trumpism, but it is also so much more. What led to this moment goes beyond either of them and our ability to make a better society depends on far more than just those two, or even just their supporters. But in this instance in time, many pivotal actions and results will indeed be generated by those represented in that shorthand. From those confrontations we will be either creating something better or battling something even worse.

Barnett does, in offering some optimism, grounds it in facts and possible avenues of action. Yet ultimately there are still, at this moment, more questions than answers. Will people with broad agreement but very serious conflict band together to oppose a greater evil, then work out their differences later? Or will the fractured left stay fractured while the right, which is united in their opposition rather than in any actual policy or ideology, regains power and tries to shut down any form of democratic or socialist opposition? Until we have some idea how well various coalitions hold together everything is speculation. And it is into this area that a book like this is valuable.

The value is in pointing out that the disagreements within the left and center (and lets be honest, the center was the right just a couple decades ago) are ones of degree while the ones between them and the authoritarian right ones of fundamental structure and control. In other words, is it better to band together to make democracy better with many important battles ahead, or to let democratic rule be overturned and never have the opportunity to debate the policies that would have made a democracy more responsive and representative?

I would recommend this to anyone wanting to avoid at all cost authoritarian rule in the US and/or throughout the world.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )