Twelve years ago, the magazine Foreign Policy published an article entitled “Best. Decade, Ever” indicating an optimism that sees an inevitable progress over time, with all our social, political and economic challenges gradually overcome. By contrast, with the tense international relationships involving Russia, the Ukraine, China and the United States meaning the whole world is on tenterhooks, as well as war, increases in poverty, threats to democracy and the pandemic, these predictions leave much to be desired. In the book Tiempos violentos. Rusia, Ucrania, China, Estados Unidos y el nuevo desorden mundial, Farid Kahhat, a Sociology graduate from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru and a doctor in Governability from the University of Texas, analyses three phenomena that confirm this idea of backward movement: the rise of the radical right, conflicts between the United States and China, and the pandemic. In conversation with David Marcial Pérez Muñoz, journalist with El País newspaper.