We live in the best of all worlds: never before has there been so much peace, never before have we been so rich, so safe. These are the stories we tell ourselves. But what if they don’t correspond to reality? What if democracies crumble, hatred between social groups grows, economic growth stagnates, the threat of a climate catastrophe increases? In his expansive essay, Philipp Blom argues that the West may be in a crisis because of, and not despite, peace and prosperity. Nothing in our past has prepared us for this. The signs are there that a storm lies ahead, and that the struggle for the future will also be a struggle between narratives, before all eyes, on the stage of the global theatre.