The coronavirus pandemic is the great opportunity to begin a transition towards a new civilizational model
In this book written to the rhythm of the events caused by the covid-19, Boaventura de Sousa Santos carries out, between fear and hope, a brilliant analysis that tries to extract the many lessons that a pandemic that has intensified inequalities seems to be giving us and social discrimination. Perhaps one of the most important is the need to democratize democracy. In the midst of so many samples of anti-life attitudes, denialism, concentration of power based on decrees and states of exception, it is urgent to ask who really wins with all this.

In the first of the two parts in which the text is structured, it offers the most panoramic view possible of the devastation caused by the coronavirus, of the long history that preceded it, of the causes that determined the way in which it "chose" its victims, the consequences derived from it, the actions of the States and the communities in the face of a danger of unforeseen dimensions. In the second, it is argued that perhaps now is when the 21st century will have its true beginning. We are at the end of an era that began in the 16th century with European colonial expansion; the signs are too visible to be ignored. In the new that opens before us, nature no longer belongs to us, but we belong to nature. The author foresees a long and difficult but irreversible transition towards a new model of post-capitalist, post-colonial and post-patriarchal civilization. The resistance will be enormous, but the task cannot be postponed.