The Shape of the World to Come: Charting the Geopolitics of a New Century

by Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, George Holoch (Translator)

Overview

Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good.

Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world—a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."

Cohen-Tanugi's point is not that the major trends of economic globalization, technological revolution, regional integration, and democratic progress are no longer at work. His argument is that economic globalization exists in a complex dialectic with the traditional geopolitics it has, ironically, helped to revive. This tension has created an ambivalent world that requires democracies to operate in two realms: the realm of economic integration and multilateralism—or peaceful, astrategic, "postmodern" internationalism—and the more traditional, even regressive realm of confrontation between national and regional strategies of power fought against a background of terrorism, civil wars, and nuclear proliferation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231517904
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/16/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	152
File size:	585 KB

About the Author

Laurent Cohen-Tanugi is founder and managing partner of Laurent Cohen-Tanugi Avocats and Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford University. He is the author of Beyond Lisbon: A European Strategy for Globalisation (2008), The Shape of the World to Come: Charting the Geopolitics of a New Century (2008), and An Alliance At Risk, The United States And Europe After September 11 (2003).

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Multipolar World
1. The New Face of Globalization
2. The End of the Atlantic Era
3. The Geopolitics of Globalization
4. The West on Trial
5. The Weapons of Peace
Conclusion
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Stanley Hoffmann

This thoughtful and sweeping tour of the international horizon, by a well-informed and sound French observer, enlightens readers about the transformation of world affairs by globalization, the geopolitical shifts in the rise and fall of states, and the complex patterns of integration and fragmentation in a world more than ever devoid of central power. Laurent Cohen-Tanugi's suggestions about priorities, or about a renewed Atlantic partnership, are eminently sensible. Will they prevail, come too late, or not be strong enough?

— Stanley Hoffmann, Buttenwieser University Professor, Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Richard Reeves

Globalization may be flattening the world economically, but, taking a closer look, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi sees dangerous cracks and dark corners of nationalism and geopolitics on the landscape of this new century. He has written a guide for those who care where we are all going next.

Editorial Reviews

In this sweeping survey of global geopolitics in flux, Cohen-Tanugi (An Alliance at Risk) announces the end of the "Atlantic Era," prophesying that Western powers are in decline, soon to be overtaken by China, India and Brazil, the economic powerhouses "driving world growth." According to the author, the U.S. has lost its credibility with the catastrophic bungling of the invasion of Iraq, and despite the euro getting stronger, Europe itself is not; national interests prevail, as is evident from the French and Dutch rejection of a constitutional treaty for the E.U. Cohen-Tanugi covers well-trod ground, and too often his analysis reads like a summary of the latest headlines. A competent primer for a seminar on contemporary international relations, the book does offer some predictions and suggestions for actors in the new world order. The author regards Asia and the Middle East as the 21st century's potential battlegrounds and believes the U.S. and Europe still have a vital role to play in striving to preserve "democratic values and the stability of the world," thereby influencing geopolitics even as their stature and alliances shift. (Aug.)

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