The World After Gaza

A History

By: Pankaj Mishra

Narrated by: Mikhail Sen

"Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding.” —Naomi Klein

“This profoundly important and urgent book finds Mishra, one of our most intellectually astute and courageous writers, at the peak of his powers.” —Hisham Matar

“A triumphant work of empathy in a polarizing conflict.” —Anand Giridharadas

Named a Best Book of the Month by TIME • Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by The Guardian, Bustle, Foreign Policy, and Literary Hub

From one of our foremost public intellectuals, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza that reframes our understanding of the ongoing conflict, its historical roots, and the fractured global response

The postwar global order was in many ways shaped in response to the Holocaust. That event became the benchmark for atrocity, and, in the Western imagination, the paradigmatic genocide. Its memory orients so much of our thinking, and crucially, forms the basic justification for Israel’s right first to establish itself and then to defend itself. But in many parts of the world, ravaged by other conflicts and experiences of mass slaughter, the Holocaust’s singularity is not always taken for granted, even when its hideous atrocity is. Outside of the West, Pankaj Mishra argues, the dominant story of the twentieth century is that of decolonization.

The World After Gaza takes the current war, and the polarized reaction to it, as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of two competing narratives of the last century: the Global North’s triumphant account of victory over totalitarianism and the spread of liberal capitalism, and the Global South’s hopeful vision of racial equality and freedom from colonial rule. At a moment when the world’s balance of power is shifting, and the Global North no longer commands ultimate authority, it is critically important that we understand how and why the two halves of the world are failing to talk to each other.

As old touchstones and landmarks crumble, only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise, powerful, and pointed treatise, Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis — about whether some lives matter more than others, how identity is constructed, and what the role of the nation-state ought to be. The World After Gaza is an indispensable moral guide to our past, present, and future.

Disappointing

Lots of insights but falls apart in the last two chapters, willfully overlooking its own research and findings.

A well balanced book

I have read or listened to about two dozen books about Israel and Palestine. I have been to both Gaza and Masada twice and Hebron once. Most books take one side or the other. This book looks at both sides and explores the outside factors that have helped create this almost impossible to solve problem. He ignores the many mistakes that the Palestinians have made, but illuminates the strengths and tenacity of the Zionist movement. He spends a lot of time on the refusal by most other countries to accept Jewish refugees. The Palestinians were left out of most of the discussions about immigration, land ownership and political control. Israel excelled at PR in their own favor, while the Palestinians had few Western supporters and spokespeople.
The writer spares no individual or nation from hypocrisy. You might accuse him of bias about an issue until he savages the other side.
The reader does not have a biased tone, a relief.

Rude Awakening

I’d give it six stars if I could. Pivotal. The Epilogue is some of the most potent diction I’ve ever encountered. Free Palestine! 🇵🇸

A brilliant analysis of the immoral reality of today’s world

The author’s references to the Shoah cast light on the cruelty of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Superb analysis - and an understanding beyond the usual

This book is a must read. Analysis supported by facts of the positioning of Zionism,instumentalizationnof the Holocaust, and the importance of colonialism and decolonization. Excellent. Only niggle - please please please can readers learn the correct pronunciation of names of major political figures? Please?