The rise of a critical mass of world leaders including Donald J. Trump, Xi Jinping and others In Europe, Asia and Latin America who are bent on shaping a new world order in their authoritarian and civilizationalist mould, has given 1984, George Orwell's prophetic novel, published 70 years ago, renewed relevance.
Its graphic warning of the threat of illiberal and authoritarian rule and the risks embodied in liberal democracy are as acute today as they were in the immediate wake of World War II.
In many ways, Mr. Orwell's novel that envisioned the rise of the surveillance state and the emergence of what he called Newspeak, the abuse of language for political purposes and the perversion of the truth in ways that makes facts irrelevant, could have been written today.
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