I reviewed Waleed Aly's new book for The Conversation

You can see my review of Time of Monsters here.

I'd like people to read this piece, because it doesn't just engage with Aly's book (though it does that). It also sketches my own feelings about our current post-liberal situation. A lot of people seem to confuse liberalism with the (supposedly) left-wing ideology known as the identity synthesis (per Yascha Mounk) or as critical social justice or "woke". Liberalism and the identity synthesis are not the same thing: the identity synthesis is an anti-liberal totalizing ideology. It is not a hyperliberalism but a reaction to liberalism's supposed failures. In my review of Aly's book, I explain briefly what the difference is. To Aly's credit, he's also clear about this point.

It's worth emphasizing this, because I so often see people fulminating about "liberals" - but very often what they're fulminating isn't liberalism at all but some kind of left-wing totalizing ideology that has arisen precisely to challenge liberalism, which they see as having failed. To save you reading my book How We Became Post-Liberal (though you definitely should!) you can get the gist of the idea just by reading my review of Aly's short book (or very long essay) Time of Monsters.