I am Planta: On the Line. This is THECOMMENTARY.CA.

In the course of pursuing the utopian ideal of a world without evil, entire societies have been destroyed. In a new book just published in Canada by Doubleday, John Gray argues that the death of utopia doesn’t mean peace, rather a resurgence of ancient myths in openly fundamentalist forms. For example, the promise in Iraq was for democracy to flourish. What’s happened instead is anarchy and an emerging theocracy. John Gray joins me from London this morning, where the book’s already gotten good notices. He’s the author of the critically acclaimed Straw Dogs, Heresies, False Dawns, Al-Qaeda, and What it Means to Be Modern. A former professor of politics at Oxford and a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, he is currently a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, as well as a contributor to the New York Review of Books. The book, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, retails for $29.95. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, John Gray; Good morning, Mr. Gray.

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