LAUSR

Left-out by the Gerbaudo’s account is not only the trade union struggles which formed a backbone to the ‘movement of the squares’, from Tahrir to Place de la République, nor as well the history of socialist thought and praxis which is erased by Gerbaudo’s selective discussion of populism. The Mask and the Flag fails to examine the other political current that has proven to be deft with the times. Gerbaudo offers some warnings of the danger of Trump, Le Pen, Wilders and Farage but no analysis. If, as he claims, the movement of the squares has shifted political common sense then why is it that in many cases the right appears to be winning? Read as an intimate account of the intellectual development of a particular strain of political thought on the left as it passes from the era of globalisation to populism, The Mask and the Flag will be useful to scholars invested in these affairs. However, on the whole, the book would have dramatically benefited from a reflexive awareness of that utility.