Our imagination of great ages often returns to this period, and even when it does not, the greatness of other eras remains a powerful influence. Historically, Europe marked a definitive break from the Middle Ages during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In these periods, history as we know it emerged, dividing human civilization into distinct eras: ancient, classical, medieval, enlightenment, and contemporary modernity. Before this, history was recorded as annals or biographies, with time divided by dynasties, or simply into past and present, pre-religious and post-religious.
The modern conception of history introduced two fundamental ideas: the sense of human agency—the ability to act and shape our own destiny—and the concept of progress as the ultimate goal of human history. Previously, history had no specific direction other than a movement toward the “end of times.” The idea of progress, which is now a universal aspiration and a subject of critique, is a modernist invention. We believe in it, yet its direction remains difficult to define.
In truth, we owe our entire contemporary worldview to modernity. At the same time, every aspect of our lives today has roots in the Middle Ages. This was the view of the late Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco, author of “The Name of the Rose” and a prescient observer who foresaw the dominance of foolishness on social media. In a 1973 essay titled “Dreaming of the Middle Ages,” Eco explored the powerful and persistent presence of the Middle Ages in modern life, noting how nostalgia for this era has permeated even the most contemporary periods. He argued that the Middle Ages remain a vital part of the modern and postmodern cultural imagination, visible in cinema, novels, and even architectural styles. While the skyscrapers of Manhattan stand in stark contrast to medieval architecture, they still reflect a neo-feudal style, separating the powerful elite from the common populace, like royal palaces reaching for the sky.
More importantly, many of the crises of the 1970s and 1980s—and indeed, of today—can be traced back to the European Middle Ages. It was during this time that modern European languages were formed, trading cities emerged, and the earliest forms of capitalism, with its financial and banking instruments, took shape. The roots of modern computing can be traced to Arabic mathematics, which was employed by Europeans in navigation and the discovery of the New World. Arabic optics helped treat myopia among writers who had previously struggled with poorly written manuscripts, fueling the knowledge revolution that culminated in the Gutenberg printing press. As Eco noted, “None of these ideas and innovations were born in the classical eras, Roman or Greek, but from the Middle Ages, we learned how to use them. The Middle Ages are the roots of all our contemporary ‘hot’ crises; so it’s no wonder we always return to that period whenever we ask about our roots... It’s the childhood that the doctor asks about when trying to diagnose our illnesses.”
Eco, a semiotician and hermeneutic scholar, was careful to point out that the “Middle Ages” is a modern invention; the people of that time did not see themselves as living in a transitional period between two other eras. He identified ten different ways the Middle Ages are conceptualized, from being the source of religious traditions for much of the world, to an age of barbarism and conquest, a wellspring of poetic romanticism, or even the origin of nationalism. Eco’s essays and novels established an entire field of cultural criticism known as “neo-medievalism.”
He was not alone in this observation. In 1977, the international relations professor Hedley Bull published his foundational book, The Anarchic Society, in which he argued that the world was entering a new Middle Ages. For Bull, this new era would be characterized by conflicting loyalties to entities that transcend the sovereignty of the nation-state. In the original Middle Ages, there was no concept of sovereignty because the nation-state did not exist. There were no individual citizens, only groups whose primary loyalty was to larger entities such as the Church, the Empire, or the Caliphate, or to smaller entities like knights and feudal lords. In this respect, the East was not so different from the West; the pattern of agricultural production was nearly identical everywhere.
In the new Middle Ages, according to Bull, loyalty would be divided among entities superior to the state, such as regional blocs, transnational corporations, and cultural, ethnic, or religious groups that transcend national borders. Loyalty might also be directed toward international organizations whose power exceeds that of states, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This does not mean the nation-state will disappear, but it will become just one of many actors, no longer holding absolute authority over its territory or its people, to whom it owes protection and services in exchange for their acknowledgment of its sovereignty. Bull predicted that the new Middle Ages would be secular, unlike the old, a time of “overlapping loyalties and multiple authorities”—the end of the Westphalian system.
In many ways, Bull’s prediction has come true. Although the nation-state persists, and in some cases has expanded its reach through technological control over citizens’ lives, the world has also witnessed waves of state and regime collapse since the end of the Cold War. A state of chaos can now spread quickly to neighboring countries and entire regions. The Fragile States Index, published annually by the Fund for World Peace, reveals that most countries are in a state of severe warning or fragility due to civil wars, invasions, resource conflicts, deep cultural and social divisions, and declining governance. Some refer to this as “sustained chaos,” attributing it to the globalization of crises, which deepens the vulnerability of states to external interference. This interference often takes the form of a “spillover effect,” where violence from one country spills into another due to fragile economic and political conditions. This situation is not unlike the Middle Ages, when a single religious conflict in Prague in 1618 ignited a war that engulfed Europe for thirty years, only ending with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a stark illustration of this medieval-like state of sustained chaos. The world’s imagination of the future was dominated by medieval imagery, with many recalling the “Black Death” of the fourteenth century, even though the Spanish flu pandemic after World War I was a more recent parallel. The medieval nostalgia that Eco described was glaringly evident. When we add to recurring pandemics the threats of military conflicts, chronic ethnic tensions, climate change, asylum crises, illegal migration, and violent social unrest, today’s world begins to resemble Pieter Bruegel the Younger’s seventeenth-century painting, “The Triumph of Death,” albeit a version that looks more like a poor imitation produced by generative artificial intelligence.
The most dangerous challenge to state sovereignty today, however, comes from the “market,” especially the digital market. In the 1990s, Stephen Kobrin pointed out that the emerging digital economy would lead to the deregulation of national markets, as they would be organized by multinational digital corporations. These corporations would have the power to negotiate and form partnerships without being bound by national laws. This would be accompanied by the rise of groups and individuals whose loyalty is not to the state, but to capital that transcends national borders. At the time, companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple were just emerging. Now, with the addition of tech giants like Meta, Nvidia, and OpenAI, this phenomenon has expanded, and the power of these companies surpasses that of many states. A supranational entity like the European Union is now forced to attempt to regulate the dominance of these companies in the European market and establish ethical controls over the exploitation of its citizens’ data.
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Finance Minister, calls this phenomenon “techno-feudalism,” the latest evolution of capitalism. In this view, the capitalist market has become a “digital land” controlled by feudal lords who have absolute control over their market share. They exploit, process, and resell the data generated in this space, generating immense profits. In the Middle Ages, feudal lords did not participate in the production carried out by peasants and serfs, but they profited from rent. Today, rent has become profit without production, which is what reproduces capital. Amazon’s movies, series, and Kindle devices do not generate as much profit for Jeff Bezos as the marketing of other products on his platform. No matter what Meta produces, it will never generate more profit than it does from selling and processing user data.
The theory of “techno-feudalism” has been criticized by both historians and critics of capitalism, who see it as a rehash of the “surveillance capitalism” argument. Nevertheless, it is clear that the digital market does not serve the interests of state sovereignty, at least not for marginal states that are unable to negotiate with these powerful companies or regulate their exploitation of citizens’ data. It seems that the debate has moved beyond whether to allow the exploitation of citizens’ data to simply how to negotiate the terms of that exploitation. While this may not violate the legal definition of the state, another phenomenon, also with roots in the Middle Ages, does: “informal violence that transcends borders.”
The modern state is defined as the social entity that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Today, however, the privatization of violence has become commonplace. Mercenaries have returned in force, now under the guise of “private security companies” or “contractors.” They are a dominant presence in all twenty-first-century conflicts, employed by states, militias, and even corporations with interests in conflict zones. It has also become common for mercenaries to be used in cyberattacks. Many predict that future wars will be fought by mercenaries, especially since they were the primary fighting force in most of the world’s wars from ancient times until the advent of the modern state and its national armies. In the Middle Ages, feudal subjects were occupied with agriculture, crafts, and trade, while emperors, caliphs, and sultans summoned professional fighters from distant regions of Northern Europe, Central Africa, and the steppes of Asia to fight for money. This pattern may be repeating itself on a wider scale, as violence becomes a private market. When we add to this picture the continued presence of warlords, militias, and cartel leaders in most conflict zones, the challenges to state sovereignty become even clearer.
As the Cold War drew to a close, Eco wrote again about “living in the Middle Ages.” He argued that the Middle Ages always follow the collapse of great empires and the cultural, political, and military hegemony they represent. Historically, this has been true. The Middle Ages emerged in Europe and the Mediterranean basin after the collapse of the Roman Empire, in India after the collapse of the Gupta Empire, and in China after the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Every civilization has its medieval periods, though the level of advancement in arts, science, and technology has varied. What all medieval eras share is the disintegration of the state system, with dominant dynasties succeeding smaller states.
When we consider what might follow the erosion of Western and American global hegemony, we can invoke this medieval condition. It is unlikely that the world will transition to another imperial hegemony; instead, it may transform into a system of parallel and competing international orders. This scenario could reinforce the fragmentation of the international economy, leading to protectionism and restrictions on the movement of goods and capital in favor of national or regional economies. It could also lead to the formation of regional blocs, led by China, Russia, and India, as well as the Global South, all seeking a greater role on the world stage.
We are certainly not living in a purely new Middle Ages; the reality of the world is always a combination of the old, the new, and the future. Historical comparisons between the recent transformations the world is undergoing, rooted in the end of the Cold War, and the Middle Ages are, like all such parallels, imprecise. The Middle Ages were shaped over hundreds of years, while the current global order has only been taking shape for a few decades. However, the value of this comparison lies in its reminder that progress is not inevitable. History can witness regression, with bygone political, economic, and military patterns returning to shape the future. Technological advancements alone are not enough to propel the world forward; they may even be accompanied by a regression of modernity, becoming mere tools for reconstructing the structures of an older society. History, it seems, always triumphs over technology. As William Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
*The writer is the head of the Strategic Foresight Program at FARAS.
*The article is published in collaboration with Future for Advanced Research & Studies.
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