Mapping Crisis Across Borders: Balázs Trencsényi on the Interwar Period, Intellectual History, and the Future of Democracy
In this episode of the Review of Democracy podcast, we speak with historian Balázs Trencsényi about his new book Intellectuals and the Crisis of Politics in the Interwar Period and Beyond: A Transnational History (OUP, 2025). Trencsényi offers a sweeping re-narration of modern European intellectual history through the lens of “crisis” — not only asan analytical category, but as a powerful tool of political mobilisation. We explore how crisis discourses evolved during the interwar period, why that moment still resonates today, and how populism and neoliberalism emerged aschildren of crisis. A…
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