First as tragedy, then as farce

"In this take-no-prisoners analysis, [the author] frames the moral failures of the modern world in terms of the epoch-making events of the first decade of this century. What he finds is the old one-two punch of history: the jab of tragedy, the righthook of farce. In the attacks of 9/11 and the global credit crunch, liberalism died twice: as a political doctrine and as an economic theory"--P. of cover.