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The West is dead. Long live the West?

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What do we mean when we speak of “the West” — and how did this idea become powerful enough to justify wars? In its review of The West by Josephine Quinn and The West by Georgios Varouxakis, Christoph Nick traces the intellectual and political genealogy of a concept that has shaped centuries of power politics. The essay shows how competing definitions of “the West” — civilisational, liberal, imperial, defensive — created the ideological groundwork that makes a war like the one now unfolding against Iran conceivable. This is not commentary on headlines. It is a historical excavation of the narratives that make those headlines possible...
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https://literatur.review/en/reviews/nonfiction/west-dead-long-live-west

What do we mean when we speak of “the West” — and how did this idea become powerful enough to justify wars? In its review of The West by Josephine Quinn and The West by Georgios Varouxakis, Christoph Nick traces the intellectual and political genealogy of a concept that has shaped centuries of power politics. The essay shows how competing definitions of “the West” — civilisational, liberal, imperial, defensive — created the ideological groundwork that makes a war like the one now unfolding against Iran conceivable. This is not commentary on headlines. It is a historical excavation of the narratives that make those headlines possible... (Opens in a new window)
Georgios Varouxakis & Josephine Quinn

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Date March 2, 2026
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