The era of great changes, which was believed to have come after the collapse of communism and the “end of history,” became a time not of real transformation of states according to the Western model, but of imitation, often very superficial. But pretense sooner or later leads to a backlash. After three decades of playing by Western rules, many “students” were tired of enduring the moral superiority of “teachers” - especially since Western countries themselves turned out to be far from ideal, as shown by numerous cases of corruption, war crimes, disregard for human rights and restrictions on freedom of speech. Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes analyzes the politics of Eastern Europe, as well as Russia, the USA and China. Russia, according to the authors, has over time moved from an imitation of the Western socio-political system to a parody of American foreign policy adventurism. In the United States, Trump is actively destroying the idea of American exceptionalism and missionary foreign policy, as he believes that such an ideology is holding back the country’s economic development. China generally offers a society without ideology and moral guidelines - and many countries find this model close. Krastev and Holmes do not provide a recipe for a new ideological platform for the whole world, but they explain the reason for the growth of nationalism and authoritarianism in many countries.