{"id":842678,"date":"2025-11-11T08:33:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T06:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=842678"},"modified":"2025-11-11T08:34:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T06:34:00","slug":"david-buckhams-newest-book-unpacks-how-the-west-lost-its-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/842678\/david-buckhams-newest-book-unpacks-how-the-west-lost-its-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"David Buckham\u2019s newest book unpacks how the West lost its soul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cI used to think that I know what I know, and I know what I don\u2019t know. I would forget that I don\u2019t know certain things, and would have a certain confidence that was unwarranted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a personal discovery that was made by David Buckham when authoring his latest book, <em>The Spell \u2013 A Story of Human Progress and How the West Lost its Soul.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thespell.co.za\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=November+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about <em>The Spell.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Buckham\u2019s co-author, Robyn Wilkinson, who was speaking at the book\u2019s launch, the book was originally to be a discussion around the climate change narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, both authors soon became enthralled with the more general idea of narratives and the influence they have over our world view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople in South Africa talk about State Capture. I have a concept called Mind Capture, where people are captured into specific geopolitical narratives,\u201d said Buckham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is particularly evident in the modern day, where politically, the world is perhaps more polarised than it has ever been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right-wing and left-wing political ideologies are both further apart, and more fervently followed, than ever before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch the video below for some highlights from the book launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"David Buckham on \u2018The Spell\u2019 and the narratives that shape our world\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T9OiqXFa1vA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Epistemes and narratives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Buckham and Wilkinson cited inspiration from the work of Michel Foucault, who spoke of epistemes \u2013 the underlying structures and rules by which truth is defined in specific societies and historical periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Spell <\/em>explores similar concepts to these epistemes, but through the frame of what its authors call narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many cases, these narratives \u2013 both historical and current \u2013 end up serving the privileged at the expense of those who are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the book launch, Buckham provided the historical example of King Henry VIII, who converted England from Catholicism to Protestantism for political and personal reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also highlighted the modern-day Conference of the Parties (COP), which enforces environmental responsibility expectations that are unrealistic for less privileged regions like Africa and South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe basic argument of the book is that wealthy, privileged people wish to remain privileged,\u201d said Buckham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A positive spin<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>However, <em>The Spell\u2019s <\/em>authors differ from Foucault in that they did not ascribe to his nihilistic conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Wilkinson, following Foucault\u2019s ideas to their logical end would suggest that nothing has meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, all perceived fact and meaning is merely relative to the epistemes within which one lives and believes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, <em>The Spell <\/em>suggests something different \u2013 thattrue value can be found in ideas like love, which are not limited to specific narratives or epistemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Get the book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Spell \u2013 A Story of Human Progress and How the West Lost its Soul <\/em>follows the excellent success of Buckham and Wilkinson\u2019s previous books, including <em>The End of Money <\/em>and <em>The Age of Menace<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is now available at your favourite stores for buying books \u2013 including Exclusive Books, Takealot, and Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thespell.co.za\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=November+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about <em>The Spell<\/em><\/strong><\/a><em>, <\/em>or follow the book\u2019s social media pages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thespell_book?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=November+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Instagram<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@TheSpell_Book?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=November+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>YouTube<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@thespell_book?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=November+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Tik Tok<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spell is now available from Exclusive Books, Takealot, and Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":842680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[23981,16446,19840,24066,23982],"class_list":["post-842678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-book-launch","tag-david-buckham","tag-monocle-solutions","tag-spell","tag-the-spell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842694,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842678\/revisions\/842694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}