Featured as one of "Six Books to Help Understand Trump's Win" by The New York Times, this book is a Fareed Zakaria GPS Book of the Week. It is described as "an intelligent guide to a phenomenon by no means over" by Fareed Zakaria of CNN. The Economist praises it as "well-written and well-researched, powerfully argued and perfectly timed." It was named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Bloomberg, with Thomas Edsall, a New York Times columnist, stating it is "far and away the most incisive examination of the central development in contemporary politics: the rise of populism on both the right and the left. Superb." The book explores what is happening in global politics and whether there is a thread that ties it all together. It discusses the passionate support for socialist Bernie Sanders among many Democrats, the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, and the rise of the vituperative billionaire Donald Trump.