What do we hope for? The question is deliberately ambiguous. What do we want from our lives? How would we like the world to be? What values would we like our era to exhibit? Why do we hope at all, faced with the multitude of existential crises that plague our times? Into this maelstrom of chaos steps Giuliano da Empoli to tell us that chaos is the plan, disorientation is the deliberate goal of those shaping world events, and all of our personal dreams are to be swept away in the brute force of their hubris.

Fortunately, he does it in a series of wittily written skits that when it all gets a bit too dark and overwhelming we can pretend are contributions to the political TV dramas he references rather than his own experience as a political advisor actively involved in the scenes he describes. The format of the book, and its compactness, manages to make the sinister themes relatively easy to read and even entertaining. It’s helpful that he can make you occasionally smile and that the characters in his psychodrama are engagingly drawn, as he delivers his devastating insights into our fallen world.

As the rules based order of 70 plus years of post war liberal democracy breaks down, traditional politicians flounder in uncertainty and electorates increasingly look for the strong arm alternatives that might defend their interests, bringing forth their own bogeyman to slay the perceived threats of another. Yet, the speed of technological development presents the means of attack so efficiently that it can be delivered from behind bedroom curtains by a couple of sufficiently motivated disenchanted teenagers.

In this bewildering world people look for solutions. In the UK Nigel Farage recently announced that Reform UK would deport 600,000 people if elected. Traditional parties point to this being impossible, against the rules, but by raising the finger of objection they merely attract the ire of the mob that wants action. Everything is possible in the frantic world of the populist far right, but it comes at the price of total subjugation to the autocratic, often brutal, predator head, whose hour it seems has come right across the globe.

Da Empoli quotes Javier Milei in saying that the difference between a madman and a genius is success, and with so many madmen claiming power around the world they are starting to be proclaimed as geniuses. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun and the author constantly relates the scenes from his own experience back to historic examples, emphasising most the Borgias and the influence Cesare Borgia’s actions had on Niccolo Machiavelli's political theory in The Prince, but also referencing further back in time to Plutarch’s Lives and Suetonius’s The Twelve Ceasars.

Indeed, about half way through his narrative, Da Empoli tells us that “The hour of the predator is essentially just a return to normality. The anomaly was the brief period during which we believed that we could curb the bloody quest for power with a system of rules.” And maybe that is oddly where we can have hope, that though the world as we know it is ending it is not necessarily the end of the world full stop and we might at least hope for a future of sorts even if we don’t get to see it ourselves, but those previous ages never had total destruction at their fingertips, so maybe not.

All this comes before we consider the part played by tech billionaires and their platforms in shaping the world, influencing the way we think and act, and driving us towards their post-human vision. Even liberal democratic leaders like Christian Lindner begging Elon Musk for an audience on social media in 2024, or Keir Starmer opening Britain’s doors to a new age of AI investment, are subjugating their nations to the unregulated, unrestrained “tech conquistadors”, but whether they do or not the new wave of autocratic leaders are clearing their path. AI is seeping into every aspect of our lives, justifying any means, even means we cannot see, query or explain, with its ends, in some cases relatively mundane but ultimately universal.

Arguably The Hour of the Predator is as dizzying and disorientating as the world that it describes in the way it jumps from scene to scene and adds layers of complexity and collusion. It is all too much to take in and although only a small book its pace is unrelenting. By the end I found myself with only one conclusion, the only way out is to rely on the physical world for what you need, your own body, connection to a local and physically present community, the land, soil and water. The revolutionary act of our time is to unplug from the machine, knowing full well that there will be a significant cost, we will be cut off from the “future”, but that we will remain human.

I had high expectations for this book, given its intriguing title. However, I was disappointed to find that the narrative was more of a collection of impressions, quotes, and comparisons from history, rather than a logical and structured exploration of the topic.The author does offer some insightful critiques of autocrats and tech billionaires, likening them to the ruthless Borgias of the past. He is also scathing in his assessment of modern politicians. Nevertheless, I found the book unconvincing due to its disjointed and piecemeal approach. Overall, it's an interesting but flawed read.

It’s too bad no one reads history or philosophy any more, says Giuliano Di Empoli in his latest book The Hour of the Predator. The author of The Wizard of the Kremlin shows the same personalities we see today have arisen in the past, and we can see what they will do, when, and why.

Di Empoli has been attached to governments in France and Italy for decades. He has been at the meetings and events, conferences and United Nations presentations and negotiations as senior adviser. He sees “types” everywhere, from the sherpas and the secret services to the outlandish personalities of the leaders themselves. Everyone has a role to play, and they play them out the same way, again and again.

He and several of his friends in high places have concluded that everything political is ten percent West Wing, 20 percent House of Cards, and 70% Veep. They can stand back and watch it unfold, sharing knowing glances that they are correct in those assumptions.

Leaders, he says, start out naïve and a little fearful. They take the advice of their handlers/sherpas. Soon though, they think they have seen it all and dismiss the handlers in favor of snap decisions of their own. The final stage, after everything is has collapsed around them, is to consider advice again, with essentially no good decisions coming from it. This is how the world turns.

Di Empoli keeps coming back to Machiavelli and the Borgias, who employed chaos to keep everyone buzzing, making rash decisions on a seemingly daily basis, but also being regarded as powerful leaders because they made so many history-changing decisions so quickly. The populace longs for fast-moving decision-makers after suffering through eras of weak decisions and gridlock.

For those of the extreme right, chaos is their favorite tool. When they back themselves into a corner, they call on chaos to free them. Keeping the system off balance merely requires the injection of more chaos. “In this new world, every process will be driven to its most extreme consequences. Nothing will be contained or governed. The brake lines have been cut. Pedal to the metal has become the only possible option.”
His dim view of Donald Trump: “Trump is merely yet another illustration of one of the obvious, unchanging principles of politics: there is practically no connection between intellectual power and political intelligence.” Trump famously refuses to read – anything. This results in humiliating situations where he is totally unprepared, for example, not knowing the name of foreign president he is meeting with, not knowing the country he is from, and shocked that the man speaks perfect English – because it is the native language of his nation.
He sums up America’s current government as: “The new American president is at the head of a motley procession of shameless autocrats, tech conquistadors, reactionaries and conspiracy theorists, all spoiling for a fight. An era of limitless violence lies ahead of us, and, as in Leonardo (Da Vinci)’s time, the defenders of freedom seem singularly unprepared for the battle to come.”
And yet, Di Empoli knows full well the opposite is true too. When highly intelligent, accomplished people assume they can run a country’s government, they quickly face the fact that politics is completely different from anything they have managed. If they are quick learners, they can hold their own. If not, it’s back to the chaos machine to divert the populace from the mess.

It is a very fast paced and short little book, filled with personal anecdotes, name dropping and embarrassments. The blurbs from various writers at the front are all very different, citing completely different points he makes throughout the book. Highly entertaining as well as shameful.

He points out that a country’s ambassadors used to be lifetime professionals who understood relationships, protocols and sensitivities, and had a deep understanding of their host country. They built trust and networks. A few ambassadorships were handed over to bigwigs, such as major donors or as political favors. But today, he says, it has been reversed, with most ambassadors named because they paid for it in donations, and only a few minor countries getting professional diplomats. Soon, he fears, there won’t be any of those any more at all and it will all be big money amateurs playing at diplomacy.

He delves a little deeper in the profiles of example personas like Henry Kissinger, who could not leave the stage – ever. In his last year, he began gathering his connections for demonstrations and talks on artificial intelligence, which he would never master or even use, and at 100, would clearly not be around to benefit from, if benefit is the appropriate word. Di Empoli is acutely aware that AI “could be used by bad actors to create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.” So it won’t matter much that career diplomats have gone extinct.
The peacock and cocksure President Bukele of El Salvador fits Di Empoli’s thesis to a T in his extended profile.

Eric Schmidt of Google fame is also profiled, and that doesn’t happen very often.

And Mohammad Bin Salman comes in for analysis of his world-class chaos machine. He above all has the power to implement chaos, and he does so with flair and viciousness, again and again.

Thanks to being able to look back, and to being able to assign so much to the Veep bin, Di Empoli says: “The hour of the predator is essentially just a return to normality. The anomaly was the brief period during which we believed that we could curb the bloody quest for power with a system of rules.”

David Wineberg

Having loved da Empoli's novel The Wizard of the Kremlin, I jumped at the chance to read this latest work. In this brief but bracing book, da Empoli ruthlessly skewers the failures of the politicians and power structures that govern our world, providing behind-the-scenes insights to bolster his argument that most democratic politicians are lost in a web of superficial legalities while autocrats and technocrats act ruthlessly, but effectively. A pretty pessimistic take, but one I sadly join. I enjoyed da Empoli's invocation of Machiavelli and the Borgias as a useful model, and thought his prose simple but effective. The anecdotal and fragmented structure meant the read meandered a bit at times; I didn't quite think it cohered as an arc. The ending also felt a little abrupt, closing with a piquant anecdote that didn't feel quite weighty enough given the scope of the rest of the book. Overall, however, I enjoyed the read and would definitely recommend it to others.

This is a fascinating and disturbing read about the harms of putting our lives into the hands of technocrats and autocrats who don’t care about anyone but themselves. It is generally very well-written, though it often felt quite disjointed (and I found some of the tone/comments about autism off-putting). It is a short but powerful read, and I hope it leads to positive change before it’s too late.

Thank you to NetGalley and Steerforth & Pushkin for the free eARC. I post this review with my honest opinions.

This review is cross-posted to Goodreads. It will also be posted on Amazon and Instagram within a week of the book’s publication.