Pankaj Mishra on global rage, and the real culprit: modernity

A new Pankaj Mishra book is always a publishing event. In critically acclaimed, best-selling works—most recently Temptations of the West, An End to Suffering and From the Ruins of Empire—the Indian essayist, author and public intellectual has offered thoughtful explorations of a globalizing India, the Buddha and contemporary spirituality, and western imperialism’s history in Asia. Mishra’s latest book, The Age of Anger: A History of the Present, though, has struck a particular chord at a time when populism and fanaticism are taking hold in many parts of the world.

Monobina Gupta is a journalist and author based in Delhi. She has worked with The Times of India and the Kolkata Telegraph, and written for The Economic Times, The Caravan, and The New York Times’ India Ink. Her books, Didi: A Political Biography and Left Politics in Bengal: Time Travels among Bhadralok Marxists, have...