At the opening of The Hour of the Predator, Giuliano da Empoli describes Spain’s conquest of the Aztec empire, its doomed ruler Moctezuma II’s response (ineffective vacillation, delaying any course of action), its consequences and its relevance to politics today. It is a striking introduction to a brief, bracing and profoundly alarming book. The author argues that an alliance of tech bros and authoritarian rulers – whom he calls modern-day Borgias – are sweeping away the rules-based international order. He sees our elected leaders as comparable to the procrastinating Aztec emperor, appeasing and hesitating as the opportunity for action passes into history.
Da Empoli has a peculiar vantage point. He was a senior adviser to the former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and is said to be a close friend of Emmanuel Macron. After a career in politics he became a novelist, and this book artfully combines his talents. It is a series of impressionistic vignettes from the past decade, blended with polemic, and can be read in a single sitting.
Some of the scenes Da Empoli sketches derive from personal experience on the international stage. Others will be familiar to anyone who follows the news; but his command of detail makes them all the more arresting. A particularly effective chapter describes how Mohammed bin Salman, shortly after being promoted to crown prince in 2017, allegedly lured almost every major power broker in Saudi Arabia – some of them close relatives – to Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel on the same night. Once there, the men learned they had not been invited for a simple conversation. Instead, they were met by secret police, stripped of their possessions and handed simple white clothes and underwear to last them for an extended stay. After several days of interrogation and confessions, most were allowed to leave – some billions of dollars poorer. Ever since, MbS’s hold on power has been undisputed.
The Saudi leader is portrayed as one of ‘new Borgias’, those members of the current global ruling class who act decisively and disregard political norms and restrictions. The CEOs of big tech also belong to this group, says Da Empoli – who writes almost contemptuously of the efforts of European leaders to appease or reason with Elon Musk, for example, as he tramples over democratic processes with X. We are left in no doubt that their approach will work as well for elected leaders as it did for the Aztecs.
The book is not without flaws. Da Empoli briefly discusses Cambridge Analytica, the defunct political campaigning consultancy that boasted about its ability to micro-target individuals and swing elections. Through my own investigations, I know Cambridge Analytica was a smalltime player making overblown claims, never reaching anything like the big league and playing virtually no role in Brexit or the election of Donald Trump. But Da Empoli gives credence to its boasts – not least because it suits his narrative, imagining conversations with the company’s CEO as a global power player.
So our narrator in these vignettes may not be entirely reliable – but this could be one of those cases where details don’t matter. The Hour of the Predator is impressionistic and urgent. It is not evidencing, let alone proving, its thesis; it exists to provoke thought. The result is something like The Prince for our times. Machiavelli might have written to appease an autocrat while Da Empoli is warning against them, but the effect is much the same: a glimpse behind the curtain of how the game is really played. Da Empoli’s book makes its point and then ends almost mid-thought. But it will stay in the memory for far longer than the time it takes to read it.
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