The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West

The epic story of the past, present, and future of world order that 'brilliantly' (Kishore Mahbubani, author of Living the Asian Century) argues why the decline of the West may be a good thing for the world Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the West has been in crisis. Social unrest, political polarization, and the rise of other great powers--especially China--threaten to unravel today's Western-led world order. Many fear this would lead to global chaos. But the West has never had a monopoly on order. Surveying five thousand years of global history, political scientist Amitav Acharya reveals that world order--the political architecture enabling cooperation and peace among nations--existed long before the rise of the West. Moving from ancient Sumer, India, Greece, and Mesoamerica, through medieval caliphates and Eurasian empires into the present, Acharya shows that humanitarian values, economic interdependence, and rules of inter-state conduct emerged across the globe over