If the West is heading toward some kind of crisis, it’s worth asking ourselves a few basic questions. Modern society as we normally define it — a secular culture built around tolerance, reason, and democratic values — occupies a rather small portion of the world, and there are signs that it is shrinking. Is modernity the inexorable force of progress that we tend to assume? Is it a mere moment of human history that is fast fading? If it is something to value, how can we rediscover it, separate the good and the bad in it, make it relevant and vital?

Russell Shorto (b. 1959) American author, historian, journalist

Descartes’ Bones, Preface (2008)
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