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Publisher
A CFR Book. Oxford University Press
Release Date
March 2012
Price
$27.95
272 pages
ISBN 978-0-19-973939-4
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Overview
The world is on the cusp of a global turn. Between 1500 and 1800, the West sprinted ahead of other centers of power in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and the United States have dominated the world since. But today the West's preeminence is slipping away as China, India, Brazil, and other emerging powers rise. Although most strategists recognize that the dominance of the West is on the wane, they are confident that its founding ideas--democracy, capitalism, and secular nationalism--will continue to spread, ensuring that the Western order will outlast its primacy.
In No One's World, Charles A. Kupchan boldly challenges this view, arguing that the world is headed for political and ideological diversity; emerging powers will neither defer to the West's lead nor converge toward the Western way. The ascent of the West was the product of social and economic conditions unique to Europe and the United States. As other regions now rise, they are following their own paths to modernity and embracing their own conceptions of domestic and international order.
Kupchan contends that the Western order will not be displaced by a new great power or dominant political model. The twenty-first century will not belong to America, China, Asia, or anyone else. It will be no one's world. For the first time in history, the world will be interdependent--but without a center of gravity or global guardian.
More than simply diagnosing what lies ahead, Kupchan provides a detailed strategy for striking a bargain between the West and the rising rest by fashioning a new consensus on issues of legitimacy, sovereignty, and governance. Thoughtful, provocative, sweeping in scope, this work is nothing less than a global guidebook for the twenty-first century.
"Lucid and engaging."
--Publishers Weekly
"No One's World makes a bold claim that we are seeing not just a shift to a more multipolar world, but the emergence of 'multiple modernities' in which Western values are no longer dominant. This is a debatable point, but one that is cogently argued by one of the keenest observers of international politics."
--Francis Fukuyama, author of The Origins of Political Order and The End of History and the Last Man
"Charles Kupchan provides a refreshingly sober, clear-eyed, and controversial take on what the emerging world might really look like. You don't have to agree with all his prescriptions, but his well-informed and crisply written analysis of the historical forces that have shaped today's world and what they mean for tomorrow is a valuable contribution on the most important topic of our time."
--Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Dangerous Nation
"One of America's leading international scholars offers an original look at the world's future. He envisions a new global circle consisting of a revived West and emerging powers--a world without a center of gravity that will require more consensus and more tolerance of difference. Provocative and challenging."
--Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and former New York Times columnist
"Charles Kupchan is an important and distinctive voice in an ongoing debate about the future shape of the international order. Contrary to those who argue that now is the time for the West to strengthen and extend existing rules, he cautions policymakers to prepare for a world of conflicting values and multiple paths to modernity and prosperity. The prospect of No One's World is not one that Western policymakers and pundits like to contemplate, which is all the more reason that they should read this book."
--Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter '66 university professor of politics and international affairs, Princeton University
Charles A. Kupchan is professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and Whitney Shepardson senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the National Security Council during the Clinton presidency and is the author of How Enemies Become Friends and The End of the American Era. He lives in Washington, DC.
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