The Second Fall, Anatol Lieven, Prospect
Like Voltaire criticizing the French aristocracy in the 1700s, British writer Anatol Lieven attacks America's materialism. His short story, 'The Second Fall,' published recently in the London-based magazine Prospect, chronicles the end of humanity. And most Americans would probably prefer not to see the image in the mirror that Lieven creates. Lieven, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, portrays a future in which the entire world unsuccessfully attempts to emulate America's consumerism, with dire results, as the 'greater middle eastern wars' erupt in 2032. Lieven takes his readers on a journey through the chaos of the current millennium, through the horrific effects of immortality, universal plagues and blights, and constant warfare to the quiet solitude from the perspective of an immortal human who is living in space a six-hundred years from now while searching for a new planet to call home.
--Sara V. Buckwitz
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