The Downfall of the American Order?

De: Peter J. Katzenstein - editor, Jonathan Kirshner - editor

Narrado por: Peter Lerman

The Downfall of the American Order? offers penetrating insight into the emerging global political economy at this moment of an increasingly chaotic world.

For 75 years, the basic patterns of world politics and the contours of international economic activity took place in the shadow of American leadership and the institutions it designed—an order designed to avoid the horrors of previous eras, including, most poignantly, two world wars and the Great Depression.

But all things must pass. The global financial crisis of 2008, the legacy of two long, losing wars, and the polarizing and tumultuous presidency of Donald Trump all suggest that global affairs have reached a turning point. The implications of this are profound.

The contributors to this book cast their eyes back on the order that once was and look ahead to what might follow. In dialogue with each other's appraisals and expectations, they differ in their assessments of the probable, ranging from a hollowed-out American primacy muddling through by default, to partial modifications of old institutions and practices at home and abroad, and to wholesale contestations and the search for new orders.

Contributors: Rawi Abdelal, Sheri Berman, Mark Blyth, Francis J. Gavin, Peter A. Gourevitch, Ilene Grabel, Peter J. Katzenstein, Jonathan Kirshner, and John Gerard Ruggie

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"This is a clear-eyed, analytically incisive, and compellingly relevant book for our times." (Financial Times)

"Provocative and engaging...a good place to start." (Peter Trubowitz, London School of Economics)

"This beautifully written and interesting book confronts some of the most serious problems of the 21st century world political economy." (John L. Campbell, Dartmouth College)

©2022 Cornell University (P)2022 Redwood Audiobooks

Uneven, but a strong basis for big picture thought

There is a lot of context here for understanding the phases of history, from a US-centric perspective, in a very understandable and useful framework describing overall world order, from the postwar order to now. There are the three basic phases, embedded liberalism (roughly 1945-1980), neoliberalism (roughly 1980-2008), and whatever is shaping up now: some kind of unraveling and reshaping in the wake of a high tide of globalization. I appreciate this rethink and all-around update to my big-picture thinking. The authors are perceptive, with various views about the possibilities and hazards. The authors shared drafts and responded to each other, providing a continuity in the language and concepts.

This stands out as one of my books of the year. It is already more memorable, and generative of new and updated thought, than the usual stream of history and econ books I go through.