The Defeat of the West

Why the West is losing in Ukraine—and what comes next.

In this audacious and taboo-breaking intervention, Emmanuel Todd offers a reinterpretation of the war in Ukraine and the wider crisis of Western dominance. Against prevailing orthodoxies, Todd asks why Ukraine initially resisted so effectively, why Russia has absorbed sanctions with surprising resilience and why the US and its allies struggle to sustain industrial war. He probes Europe’s subordination to American strategic priorities, despite mounting economic and social costs, and examines the growing ideological isolation of the Atlantic world beyond its own borders.Todd’s answers are characteristically original. Rejecting short-term explanations, he situates the conflict within the longue durée of family systems, religious inheritance and demographic structure. It is these deep cultural formations, he argues, that shape state capacity, social cohesion and attitudes to authority, and that help explain both Russian endurance and Western disarray.

A runaway bestseller, translated into more than twenty languages, The Defeat of the West is now available in English for the first time. Its refusal to treat Russia as the sole motor of the war, and its unsparing assessment of American power, have made it as controversial as it is indispensable. This is a book that forces a fundamental rethinking of Ukraine, the West and the shape of the world to come.