The book's title is derived from the poem "The Second Coming" by Irish poet William Butler Yeats: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity."