Strange Rebels

With this podcast we begin a new set of summer reading suggestions for 2025. In the first episode of the summer (if indeed it is summer where you are) Owen Kelly and David Morley discuss Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century written by Christian Caryl and published in 2014.

Neither of them agree with Caryl’s political position but instead argue about the usefulness of the approach he takes to history. Rather than following an issue he traces five plot-threads across the year 1979 and argues that they intertwine in significant ways that narrative-based conventional history overlooks.

This, we might feel, is perhaps more prescient than it appeared when the book was first published. Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been chaotic but might better be seen as the culmination of a series of separate but related plot threads that originated in Bejing, Jerusalem, Moscow, New Delhi, Riyadh and Tehran, rather than in Washington. Understanding Caryl’s hypothesis might make making sense of the state of the world today somewhat easier.

David Morley is emeritus professor at the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths in the University of London.