BEN KRITZ
AS tumultuous as 2018 has been, one of the most surprising things about the events of the year is that nothing really unpredictable has happened. There is a sense that the world is building toward some calamitous upheaval, but all of the economic and social tensions whose increase over the past months have encouraged that sentiment can be traced back to clear causes with enough historical precedents to have made predictions of the consequences possible.