Then the world went back to sleep. Liberal democracy came with a brand of ruthless capitalism that heavily favored the Top 1 Percent and laid waste to a large swath of the middle class in the name of "free trade" and "outsourcing," raising mass resentments that too many despots-in-training were all too eager to exploit, often with racism and xenophobia. And a new era of communication on the World Wide Web was a game changer (much like radio had been in the 1930s) that rewarded rulers who knew when to apply the stick of censorship and when to fool the masses with carrots of "fake news" produced in their troll farms. In hindsight, the joyous toppling of the wall in Berlin may not have been as pivotal to the future of humankind as China's murderous repression in and around Tiananmen Square. Just 29 short years later, the Human Rights Foundation reports that more than half the world — 53 percent — is governed by authoritarians.