The Deeper Revolution: How Worldviews Shape Western International Politics

How would we tell the story of the last 500 years of international politics in the Western world? Most of us would struggle to tell the story of the last five years, let alone the last five hundred. But history matters to the shaping of identities and to our self-understanding, and holds important keys to understanding what we are seeing unravel today.

The Deeper Revolution resists modern preferences for soundbites and executive summaries and invites the reader to take a long journey through the political history of the Western world. Our tour guide is historian and international theorist Martin Wight, who, when looking at the last 500 years of the Western states-system, identified three waves of international revolution which profoundly shaped our politics and society: the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution—three historic moments he named “doctrinal conflagrations,” where revolutionary ideas, ideologies, philosophies, programs, and belief systems came into violent clash, led to tremendous brutality and destruction, and ultimately reshaped political systems and societies.

Looking anew at these waves of revolution, this book claims that behind the visible forces of political might and change lie deep forces within belief systems and ideologies, which shape worldviews and make up a deeper revolution. While religion and faith have often been downplayed in secularized narratives of the international history of the West, this book argues for the inclusion of intangibles and belief systems to fully grasp these historic turning points and better approach our own times.

A journey through Western political history can help each reader take a step back from our current complexity, recognize familiar ideological overtones in past movements, learn from other societies who faced prodigious challenges, and reflect on how the way we see the world shapes our political and individual aspirations, our societal designs, our faith, and our actions.

About the Speaker

Dr. Emily Lange holds a PhD in Human Geography and in International Relations. As a contemplative scholar, her work and writing are a journey of learning to reflect and lead others into deep reflection. Having grown up in rural Portugal, she now lives in Bonn, Germany, working for the greater good of societies at PIRON Global Development. If you are looking for her and haven’t found her in the nearest library, she’s probably sharing her latest ideas with her friends over a coffee or beer.

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https://www.regent-college.edu/resources/events/2026-02-04-emily-lange/