The most frightening periods in history have often been interregnums – moments between the death of one king and the rise of the next. The global order is in such a state now, and the EU’s goal, achievable only with flexibility and courage, must be to remain a viable project long enough to help write the new rules.
LONDON – The most frightening periods in history have often been interregnums – moments between the death of one king and the rise of the next. Disorder, war, and even disease can flood into the vacuum when, as Antonio Gramsci put it in his Prison Notebooks, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.” The dislocation and confusion of 2016 do not rival the turmoil of the interwar period, when Gramsci wrote, but they are certainly symptoms of a new interregnum.
LONDON – The most frightening periods in history have often been interregnums – moments between the death of one king and the rise of the next. Disorder, war, and even disease can flood into the vacuum when, as Antonio Gramsci put it in his Prison Notebooks, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.” The dislocation and confusion of 2016 do not rival the turmoil of the interwar period, when Gramsci wrote, but they are certainly symptoms of a new interregnum.