The subtitle of Simon Reid-Henry’s substantial work indicates its thesis: ‘The remaking of the West since the Cold War, 1971–2017.’ The Cold War had started in 1945, and the author takes us through the upheavals of the 1960s before the advertised start of his narrative. He describes a western world that, by 1971, had undergone the student-led convulsions of 1968, and that, as well as facing challenges from the Soviet Union, China and their satellites, would have new ones to grasp: notably those presented by the 1973 oil crisis and the resulting delinquency of western treasuries as they sought not...