The ugly new world order

The hour of the predator dawns as the old order nears its end. A doddering president Joe Biden becomes a metaphor for a disintegrating world order incapacitated by new threats. In the just-released nonfiction Hour of the Predator, Swiss-Italian author Giuliano da Empoli presents a new order shaped by autocrats and plutocrats such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, AI-adventurer Sam Altman and their global prototypes.

- ANITA PRATAP

These populist-business billionaires are changing the world, fundamentally and irrevocably, hastening a geopolitical transformation as dramatic as the 16th century collapse of the Aztec empire under Spanish conquest. Or the collapsed Roman, Russian, Ottoman and British empires. The predator-prey, powerful-powerless dynamic intertwines the highs and lows of history. Power has myriad faces—brutal in war, ruthless in intrigue, seductive in rhetoric, ugly in threats, imperious in executive orders. The legion of loyal lackeys scurry to please the tyrant. The power capital becomes a swamp infested with toadies, parasites, leeches and assorted creepy-crawlies. We have seen this face of power. But da Empoli also reveals the exercise of power behind closed doors, not necessarily through yells and tantrums, but in the curling lip, unblinking stare, low, menacing voice, the silence signalling time to leave—forever.