In this dazzling world tour, which is also a lesson in modern and contemporary history, Fareed Zakaria questions the deep-seated reasons of a global crisis in which the twin concepts of democracy and freedom have come apart. Why, from Belarus to the Philippines, from Sudan to Peru, from the imploded former-Communist block to the electrified Islamic arc, as well as in the forgotten third worlds, are we seeing the rise, under a mask of legality, of authoritarian regimes, which are in reality based on denial of law, ethnic exaltation and the glorification of conflict and war? The rise of these "illiberal democracies" conforms to Western illusions about the universal future of its own model. But the rest of the world has taken the formal and institutional trappings of freedom, without adopting the rule of law and of basic human rights which gave them meaning. The result is the current breach between form and content which will be repaired only through a sense of solidarity and the promotion of the liberalisation of societies. At this time of great instability in international relations and of political confusion in the developed nations, Fareed Zakaria, like Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington before him, helps us understand the most impassioned of contemporary issues — and one on which our future hangs.

Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International and an internationally respected authority on geopolitical issues. He was named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st century" by Esquire magazine. Zakaria, who is of Muslim-Indian origin, was formerly the managing director of the review Foreign Affairs, and has taught at Harvard.