The sharpening debate over information, like increasing violence generally, are all phenomena of a deepening crisis in the social fabric of modern Western societies.

The Dutch general election on March 15 generated enormous media attention all over the world. It seemed as though democracy was at stake. After the Brexit vote in the U.K. and Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S., commentators wondered if the populist vote would get the upper hand in Holland, too.

In the camps on islands like Lesbos and Kos, on the Macedonian border, the stench of shit and dirty clothes grows stronger; the mud of the winter and spring months has changed into dusty fields.

John Steinbeck published his famous book in April 1939, several months before the outbreak of World War II put an end to a long economic depression in a devastating battle for world domination.