Maze of the Lost

The West and its enemies

Author's name: Amin Maalouf

How did we get here? In his book "The Labyrinth of the Lost: The West and Its Enemies," Amin Maalouf returns to the origins of this new confrontation between the West and its adversaries, tracing the journey of four great powers: Meiji Japan, the first country in Asia to challenge supremacy; the "white" nations, whose rapid modernization dazzled all of humanity, especially other Eastern countries, all of whom dreamed of emulating it; Soviet Russia, which for three-quarters of a century posed a formidable threat to the West, its order, and its values, before collapsing; China, which in this twenty-first century, with its economic development, demographic weight, and the ideology of its leaders, represents the main challenger to Western supremacy; and finally, the United States, which stood up to each of the three "challengers" and, over the course of the wars, became the supreme leader of the West and the foremost superpower on planet Earth.