A Plague On All of Their Houses

By Rebecca Kennedy, The Observer, Chelsea, Wednesday 4th March 2026

The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery By Martyn Jones (martyn.es, 2025)

In the grand sweep of history, as Paul Kennedy might observe, empires rise and fall not merely through the clash of arms or the ebb of economic tides, but through the erosion of moral sinews that bind societies and their leaders. Martyn Jones’s The End of Honour echoes this Kennedy-esque thesis, charting the precipitous decline of integrity in global politics from the unipolar illusions of the post-Cold War era to the brazen thuggery of contemporary strongmen. Written over a quarter-century, this sprawling polemic, part historical autopsy, part diplomatic jeremiad, dissects how the United States, once the self-anointed guardian of liberal order, has devolved into a “basket case” of strategic incoherence, abetted by neoliberal hubris and neoconservative adventurism. Jones, a data strategist turned contrarian commentator, draws on a lifetime of observation, from Welsh nationalism to Spanish socialism, to argue that honour’s demise has unleashed a world of “global thuggery,” where power is wielded not with restraint but as a blunt instrument of self-interest.