The Once and Future World Order

The epic story of the past, present, and future of world order, revealing how 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 millennia. History suggests order will endure even as the West retreats. In fact, the end of Western dominance offers us the opportunity to build a better world, where non-Western nations find more voice, power, and prosperity. Instead of fearing the future, the West should learn from history and cooperate with the Rest to forge a more equitable order.

This is the definitive account of how world order evolved and why it will survive the decline of the West.

A powerful reminder that not all world orders in history have been Western. This timely book argues that a dominant West is not a necessary condition for a rules-based international framework -- Odd Arne Westad, coauthor of THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION This book should serve as a model for many other academic disciplines that were founded on similarly colonialist assumptions -- Amitav Ghosh, author of SMOKE AND ASHES A refreshingly original take on a potential post-West world order -- Shashi Tharoor, author of INGLORIOUS EMPIRE To get a glimpse of the real future that humanity is heading towards, read this book carefully. It will dazzle and excite you and give you great hope for the future -- Kishore Mahbubani, author of LIVING THE ASIAN CENTURY A rich tapestry of a book bridging ancient civilizations and modern debates. An essential guide to the post-Western world. -- Parag Khanna, author of CONNECTOGRAPHY A deeply informed vision of how nations will draw on their pasts to relate to one another in the future -- Rana Mitter, author of FORGOTTEN ALLY This is the book everyone must read not only to make sense of our past but also the twenty-first century -- Ayşe Zarakol, author of BEFORE THE WEST A timely corrective to the blinkered arrogance about the role of the Rest which continues to infect so much Western policy analysis and history-writing. A compelling read -- Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and president of the International Crisis Group

Amitava Acharya is an award-winning author and distinguished professor of international affairs at American University.a He has written fora thea Washington Post,a Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs,a among many other media outlets, and he has appeared ona CNN,a NPR, the BBC, and Al Jazeera. He was born in India and has lived and worked in Singapore, Canada, UK, China and the United States.

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