In the last 25 years, democracy's been in retreat globally and quite profoundly. Democracy's gone backwards every single year for the last decade and a half. And that's part because non democratic systems have been good at doing low hanging reform of cleaning out the judiciary or going after corruption. So i think it's partly that authoritarian regimes have worked out how to retain power and do it away has uplifted the general population. Most people in the world can live under whatever kind of conditions as long as there is a semblance of meritocracy. But that doesn't have to be above some form of religious expression, but that doesn’t have to be profound.
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University and author of two seminal recent books on the shifting geopolitics of the world: The Silk Roads and its follow-up, The New Silk Roads. He speaks to fellow historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore at the Cliveden Literary Festival about how we may be currently witnessing the end of a historical era amid the emergence of a brand new one.
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